Obama Uses LGBT People As Human Shields: "Hate Crimes Bill" Helps Slaughter People in Iraq and Afghanistan

According to Certainly Not News,

The Senate passed groundbreaking legislation Thursday that would make it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. The expanded federal hate crimes law now goes to President Obama's desk. Obama has pledged to sign the measure, which was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill.

How fucked up is this?
Let me count the ways...

I hope all LGBTQ people breathlessly rejoicing over this oh-so-historic moment take a few minutes to ponder that this "hate crimes legislation" is actually a bill to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars  to kill countless people.

One more time: A bill supposedly designed to "keep LGBTQ people safe" will also fund the murder of thousands of innocent people in Obama's never-ending wars. It is so absurd that I would laugh, except it makes me want to cry.

Call me a cynic, but I see it as nothing more than an ingenious move by Obama to work progressive realness (and I predict that liberals and HRC-sexuals will soon start squealing about how she's so convincing) while she quietly ratchets up her trademark neo-con imperialism and genocide. But then, I have actually read the bill. It is 500 pages or so of "here's hundreds of billions of dollars for war, weapons manufacturers, private mercenaries, mass murder, destabilizing foreign governments, and propaganda", followed by a brief snippet about the brutal murder of that pretty white gay cis boy and how such behavior will NOT be tolerated. Yet the Dems decided to nickname a bill that is dedicated almost entirely to perpetuating Bush's (and now Obama's) wars  "The Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act"?

It was a brilliant PR move though. This bill will be overwhelmingly referenced as the Hate Crimes Bill for Queers in the news cycle, especially coming on the heels of Obama's Big Gay HRC speech.  There will be little-to-no discussion of the fact that the bill (which Obama--the peacenik candidate--has pledged to sign) funnels billions into the Pope of Hope's coffers to sustain his wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I can picture it now:
Right after Obama officially allocates more money to fund his war crimes, anti-war liberals and progressives will hoist him up on their shoulders and sing, "For He's the Jolly Good Fellow." Anti-war "progressives" and HRC-sexuals will soon be dancing in the streets, or holding one another as they sob,  "SEE? I just knew Obama was a pro-LGBT progressive! All that hoping finally paid off!"

And yet somehow, there are people who actually think this PR mastermind really intended to implement a "government run" health care option.

I imagine the reason the Dems have been pumping the "Matt Shepard" moniker so hard in their PR blitz is that it sounds more "progressive" (while diverting attention from the blood on their hands) than the  bill's formal name, "To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, to provide special pays and allowances to certain members of the Armed Forces, expand concurrent receipt of military retirement and VA disability benefits to disabled military retirees, and for other purposes."  The bill is also known as the:

-- Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center Act of 2009

-- Maritime Administration Authorization Act of 2010

-- Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act

-- Military Construction Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010

-- Part-Time Reemployment of Annuitants Act of 2009

-- SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2009 (I'll let you figure this one out yourself--it'll make your blood run cold)

-- Success in Countering Al Qaeda Reporting Requirements Act of 2009

-- Victims of Iranian Censorship Act

 -- VOICE Act

I suppose they figured that attaching the name of a white cis gay boy (who was murdered a decade ago) to the bill would better serve their propaganda purposes than affixing the name of a transgender Latina who was brutally murdered less than a year ago. Hmmm... "The Angie Zapata Hate Crimes Prevention Act".  Angie Zapata? Who the hell is that?

Here are some choice excerpts from H.R. 2647 which, among other things,  makes it a federal crime to attack U.S. military members on account of their service....FINALLY! Jeez, what took Congress so long to deal with that particular social plague?  The bill will also--if you read it closely--increase the role of so-called private contractors (anyone remember Blackwater?) in Obama's wars, although at first glance it seems to be doing the opposite. Let's start with the war formerly known as the "War on Terror", shall we?
__________________________________________________ 
TITLE XV--OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS 
(This is how Obama re-branded "War On Terror")

SEC. 1501. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this title is to authorize appropriations for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2010 to provide additional funding for overseas contingency operations of the Department of Defense in that fiscal year.

SEC. 1502. ARMY PROCUREMENT.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for procurement accounts for the Army in amounts as follows:
(1) For aircraft procurement, $1,636,229,000.
(2) For missile procurement, $531,570,000.
(3) For weapons and tracked combat vehicles procurement, $759,466,000.
(4) For ammunition procurement, $370,635,000.
(5) For other procurement, $6,329,966,000. 
(That's a lot of $$ for "other"!)
(6) For the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund, $2,099,850,000.

SEC. 1503. NAVY AND MARINE CORPS PROCUREMENT.
(a) Navy- Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for procurement accounts for the Navy in amounts as follows:
(1) For aircraft procurement, $916,553,000.
(2) For weapons procurement, $73,700,000.
(3) For other procurement, $318,018,000.
(b) Marine Corps- Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for the procurement account for the Marine Corps in the amount of $1,164,445,000.
(c) Navy and Marine Corps Ammunition- Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for the procurement account for ammunition for the Navy and the Marine Corps in the amount of $710,780,000.

SEC. 1504. AIR FORCE PROCUREMENT.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for procurement accounts for the Air Force in amounts as follows:
(1) For aircraft procurement, $896,441,000.
(2) For missile procurement, $36,625,000.
(3) For ammunition procurement, $256,819,000.
(4) For other procurement, $2,321,549,000.

SEC. 1505. DEFENSE-WIDE ACTIVITIES PROCUREMENT.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for the procurement account for Defense-wide activities as follows:
(1) For Defense-wide procurement, $491,430,000.
(2) For the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Fund, $5,456,000,000.

SEC. 1506. RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, TEST, AND EVALUATION.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for the use of the Department of Defense for research, development, test, and evaluation as follows:
(1) For the Army, $57,962,000.
(2) For the Navy, $107,180,000.
(3) For the Air Force, $29,286,000.
(4) For Defense-wide activities, $115,826,000.

SEC. 1507. OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for fiscal year 2010 for the use of the Armed Forces for expenses, not otherwise provided for, for operation and maintenance, in amounts as follows:
(1) For the Army, $52,070,661,000.
(2) For the Navy, $5,650,733,000.
(3) For the Marine Corps, $3,701,600,000.
(4) For the Air Force, $10,026,868,000.
(5) For Defense-wide activities, $7,578,300,000
(6) For the Army Reserve, $204,326,000.
(7) For the Navy Reserve, $68,059,000.
(8) For the Marine Corps Reserve, $86,667,000.
(9) For the Air Force Reserve, $125,925,000.
(10) For the Army National Guard, $321,646,000.
(11) For the Air National Guard, $289,862,000.
(12) For the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund, $7,462,769,000.
(13) For the Iraq Freedom Fund, $115,300,000.

SEC. 1511. DRUG INTERDICTION AND COUNTER-DRUG ACTIVITIES, DEFENSE-WIDE.
Funds are hereby authorized to be appropriated for the Department of Defense for fiscal year 2010 for expenses, not otherwise provided for, for Drug Interdiction and Counter-Drug Activities, Defense-wide in the amount of $324,603,000. 
(This is the money the US sends to Colombia's right-wing death squads every year to prop up their corporate-friendly gov't, currently headed by President Uribe...otherwise, Colombia would have succumbed to Latin America's "Pink Tide" decades ago)
__________________________________________________
Now, the following is just a TINY snippet about those "private 'defense' contractors". This section says, basically, "They cannot interrogate (i.e., torture) prisoners of war-or other detained criminals(!)-because that is the government's job--unless we decide to let them."
__________________________________________________

SEC. 823. PROHIBITION ON INTERROGATION OF DETAINEES BY CONTRACTOR PERSONNEL.
(a) Regulations Required- Effective as of the date that is one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Department of Defense manpower mix criteria and the Department of Defense Supplement to the Federal Acquisition Regulation shall be modified to provide the following:
 

(1) That the interrogation of enemy prisoners of war, civilian internees, retained persons, other detainees, terrorists, and criminals when captured, transferred, confined, or detained during or in the aftermath of hostilities is an inherently governmental function and cannot be transferred to contractor personnel.


(2) That contractor personnel with proper training and security clearances may be used as linguists, interpreters, report writers, information technology technicians, and other employees filling ancillary positions in interrogations of persons as described in paragraph (1) if such personnel are subject to the same rules, procedures, policies, and laws pertaining to detainee operations and interrogations as apply to government personnel in such positions in such interrogations. 



__________________________________________________

Please, go, read the full "Hate Crimes for Queers bill" for yourself.

Read the whole goddamn thing.

Then tell me how "progressive" Obama is for signing a bill into law that makes it like, really illegal to assault and kill us.

Face it. Obama & the DemocRats are using queer and transgender people as human shields so no one will pay attention to their war crimes...especially the anti-war "left". 

But yippee! At least it's like extra super-duper maxi ultra illegal to assault or murder LGBT Americans now, right? As far as those innocent, brown, freedom-hating ragheads are concerned....fuck 'em.  All that matters is that I got mine.

God bless America! 

Addendum 10/26/09- I want to clarify that I am also wary of hate crimes legislation in general. I did not go into that in this post, and that omission may seem to imply that I would be all about such legislation if it was not attached to a war bill. That's for another post (see this article at Feministing for a few arguments against hate crimes legislation).  The intention of this post was to point out Obama and the Dems (IMO) shady motivations. 

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