Cornel West: Ta-Nehisi Coates is the neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle

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Coates praises Obama as a “deeply moral human being” while remaining silent on the 563 drone strikes, the assassination of US citizens with no trial, the 26,171 bombs dropped on five Muslim-majority countries in 2016 and the 550 Palestinian children killed with US supported planes in 51 days, etc.

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I certainly am concerned with the when and why of killing treachorous American citizens. But much more haunting to me is what Filkins highlights here--the lobbing of missiles into the homes of people, and compounding it by claiming to have done no such thing.

Again it one thing to say, "We understand that there will be innocent children who will die because of this kind of warfare, but we must employ all available means to secure American lives and interests." And all another to say as Brennan speaking for the Obama administration did, "there hasn't been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we've been able to develop." In fact, there have been many "collateral deaths," but they are of the sort that most Americans will never see and, most of us suspect, don't much care about.

But if that's really true, then there is no need to dissemble. There's no need for words like "imminent" when you really mean "when I feel like it" or claiming that you're acting with a country's permission when you're pledged to acting regardless. Americans need not feel ashamed for doing what states always do--act in their best interests. I think it's highly debatable whether drones are in our best interests. In fact I suspect we're seeding future wars.

But our real problem is that we somehow think we're above our own interests, that our virtue is divine. Our problem is we think we're better than we actually are.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates

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