Five centuries of slavery were horrific. Black Africans were captured, branded, chained, force-marched, beaten, encaged, and stripped of their humanity.

Around 100 million were sold like cattle. Millions perished during the Middle Passage.

Imagine packing human beings like cargo. Imagine them under deplorable conditions. Imagine them in coffin-sized spaces.

Imagine practically one atop others in extreme discomfort. Imagine poor ventilation, dysentery, smallpox, ophthalmia, and other epidemic-level diseases.

Imagine dark, filthy, slimy, bloody, vomity conditions below deck. Imagine it filled with human excrement.

Imagine women beaten and raped. Imagine claustrophobia driving some victims insane.

Imagine floggings and clubbings to death. Imagine anyone thought diseased dumped overboard like garbage.

Imagine 50 million or more lost lives. Imagine slave traders calling it a cost of doing business.

Genocidal US policy continues in new forms. Mass murder proceeds efficiently.

Technological advances facilitate it. America's killing machine knows no limits. One genocide follows others.

Countries are ravaged and destroyed. Neither world war should have been waged. Tens of millions died needlessly.

Making the world safe for democracy is a convenient illusion. America tolerates it nowhere.

Achieving unchallenged raw power drives US policy. Mass slaughtering human beings doesn't matter.

Imperial Japan was defeated many months before WW II ended. In February and March 1945, Tokyo was gratuitously firebombed twice.

So were many other Japanese cities. Hundreds of thousands of civilians perished. Millions were left homeless.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two of history's great crimes. Imaging incinerating civilians gratuitously.

Imagine horrific radiation poisoning. Imagine disfigurations and birth defects. Imagine the effects of what happened still being felt.

Imagine no apologies for generations of crimes. Imagine turning North Korea into rubble. Imagine running out of targets to bomb.

Imagine an uneasy armistice persisting. Imagine possible nuclear war erupting. Imagine East Asia caught in the fallout.

Imagine crazed US policymakers bearing full responsibility. Imagine Washington's unparalleled killing machine power.

Imagine ruthlessness writ large. Imagine horrendous suffering beyond human comprehension. Imagine all humanity threatened.

America's post-WW II ravaging repeats with disturbing regularity. Southeast Asia was laid waste. Proxy wars killed millions worldwide.

All US direct, indirect and supported wars have no rules. Laws of war are ignored. Rampaging goes unchecked.

America was complicit in Rwandan massacres. Desert Storm was a well-planned criminal attack.

Essential to life facilities were destroyed. Tens of thousands were gratuitously slaughtered.

Twelve years of genocidal sanctions followed. Children under age five suffered most. Bush II killed millions more.

Afghanistan remains America's longest war. No end in sight looms. The cradle of civilization was destroyed.

Free market plunder replaced it. Inside the bubble is paradise. Outside reflects dystopian hell.

Balkan wars destroyed the former Yugoslavia. They culminated in US-led NATO terror-bombing Serbia/Kosovo.

Thousands of sorties ravaged and destroyed them. Imagine considering schools, churches, hospitals and cultural landmarks strategic targets.

Imagine a gratuitous humanitarian disaster. Imagine it against one nonthreatening country after another.

Libya remains a cauldron of violence. No one is safe anywhere. Obama's war on Syria continues. Iran's turn awaits.

Expect other targeted countries to be attacked. Expect no safe place to hide.

Imagine the supreme crime of aggression. Imagine it ongoing in multiple theaters.

Imagine America's dirty handiwork. Imagine crimes too grim to ignore. Imagine genocide as official policy.

Imagine new victims following earlier ones. Imagine dead bodies piling up. Imagine young boys and girls. Imagine the elderly, infirm and disabled.

Imagine America bearing full responsibility for devastated landscapes. Imagine what desperately needs ending continued.

Imagine humanity threatened. Imagine media scoundrels cheerleading what demands condemnation.

Imagine supporting Israel's killing machine. Imagine billions of annual aid dollars supporting it.

Imagine ongoing subjugating talks called peace ones. Imagine longstanding occupation turning Palestine into a virtual open-air prison.

Imagine being denied all rights. Imagine world leaders turning a blind eye. Imagine dying for many being their only escape.

Imagine what no human being should tolerate being done to another.

Imagine Washington and Israel partnering in each other's crimes. Imagine both nations being lawless warrior states.

Imagine them using weapons causing injuries, disfigurements and other effects never seen before.

Imagine unparalleled barbarism. Imagine crimes against humanity without end. Imagine weapons able to end life on earth. Imagine possibly using them.

Imagine hubris writ large threatening everyone. Imagine overreach risking armageddon.

Washington's Ukrainian agenda reflects its latest imperial adventurism. Protests didn't erupt by chance.

They were well-planned in advance. At issue is weakening and isolating Russia. It's turning Kiev West, not East. It's plundering its resources. It's exploiting its people.

It's incorporating all former Soviet republics and Warsaw pact countries into NATO. It's establishing US bases on Russia's borders.

It's having nuclear-armed missiles targeting its heartland.

Including Ukraine in NATO risks WW III.

America, Israel and key EU partners comprise the real axis of evil. They're out-of-control rogue states.

Former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau (1841 - 1929) once said "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization."

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) said the same thing. He called patriotism "the virtue of the vicious."

George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) called democracy "a form of government that substitutes elections by the incompetent many for the appointment of the corrupt few."

Perhaps he had America in mind. Obama's rap sheet reflects the worst of its policies. He's in charge until January 2017.

He's got lots more warmaking in mind. He plans hardening America's police state apparatus. He wants dissent silenced.

He wants opposition crushed. He wants freedom destroyed. It hangs by a thread. So does world peace.

Neocon infested Washington wages war on humanity. Obama risks extinguishing it altogether. Stopping him matters most.

Resistance is crucial. It's our only defense. Solidarity unites us. We're all in this together. We're on our own to survive.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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