I
Mr. Bush has become so adept at misinterpreting the present that it was only a matter of time before he would make a fun house mirror out of the past. For each championship game in professional sports, t-shirts and hats are printed naming each team as the champion so that the actual winners will have their attire immediately after the decisive game.
The merchandise bearing the name of the loser is either shipped off to third world countries or destroyed. Well, it strikes me that Mr. Bush lives in that world, that nether-realm of alternate histories that can be swiftly disproven with the most rudimentary inquisitions. The world where Bill Buckner fielded that ground ball cleanly, where the Buffalo Bills won four consecutive Super Bowls, and where the United States did not fail in Vietnam, but rather quit when victory was in sight.
Mr. Bush's recent speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars (are there any living veterans of domestic wars?), one of the few venues in which he is still welcome, perhaps because his actions have assured the VFW that they will have no shortage of membership, and therefore influence, in the foreseeable future, is a study in alternate history, a sort of choose-your-own adventure reading of the past where, if you skip ahead a few pages, you can gloss over a couple of million charred corpses here and there.
II
Before the re-writing, however, we have this quote, which crystallizes the insincerity of the president's "faith", his contempt for history, his pornographic celebration of violence, and his all-around sociopathy: "We have the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known--the men and women of the United States Armed Forces".
The greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known. The words "greatest" and "ever" preclude any room for argument, so we must first take note of what an absolute statement this is. So, this spiritual midget who named Jesus as his favorite "political philosopher" does not believe that the New Testament is a greater liberating force than American arms. If this is so, why did the 40-year old gin sock not join the military to cure his addiction? Why did he opt for Jesus instead?
The greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known is not, according to George W. Bush, the New Testament, the printing press, the Enlightenment, capitalism, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, or representative democracy. No, the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known is the United States' ability to kill people. Fantastic.
I know a lot of adjectives, but sociopathic is clearly the best one for this sentiment. The audacity of this man has no bounds. If he does not really believe in Christ's message, does he at least rate the United States system of government as providing more liberation that the United States arsenal? No, he does not.
Before the re-writing, however, we have this quote, which crystallizes the insincerity of the president's "faith", his contempt for history, his pornographic celebration of violence, and his all-around sociopathy: "We have the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known--the men and women of the United States Armed Forces".
The greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known. The words "greatest" and "ever" preclude any room for argument, so we must first take note of what an absolute statement this is. So, this spiritual midget who named Jesus as his favorite "political philosopher" does not believe that the New Testament is a greater liberating force than American arms. If this is so, why did the 40-year old gin sock not join the military to cure his addiction? Why did he opt for Jesus instead?
The greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known is not, according to George W. Bush, the New Testament, the printing press, the Enlightenment, capitalism, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, or representative democracy. No, the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known is the United States' ability to kill people. Fantastic.
I know a lot of adjectives, but sociopathic is clearly the best one for this sentiment. The audacity of this man has no bounds. If he does not really believe in Christ's message, does he at least rate the United States system of government as providing more liberation that the United States arsenal? No, he does not.
He represents a dominant paradigm that strangles this country. This paradigm holds that, as nice and flowery as our system of government is, it is secured only by our willingness and ability to visit swift and faceless death to any corner of the earth. Because, you see, if Saddam Hussein had actually had any doomsday weaponry, he surely would have blown up the factory where we make freedom of expression and the right to a speedy trial.
III
III
Now, to his reading of history, which can only make sense to a man who pays lip service to the cross, who swore to defend the Constitution, but who clearly bows to one master only: the gun.
"The communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others."
Well, in my reading of the past, the communists in Korea and Vietnam, both nations arbitrarily cut in two by the West and the Soviets following World War II, were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of their own countries. What audacity! They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on themselves.
In Mr. Bush's reading of history, Koreans invaded Korea to impose a merciless version on others. Who are these "others"? What "others" were the Vietnamese trying to force their ideology upon? The only "other" in either equation was the United States, who intervened in civil wars in each of these countries and directly killed at least 4 million civilians to prevent these countries from acheiving their merciless vision of self-determination.
To hear Mr. Bush tell it, Koreans had no right to tell other Koreans how to live, and Vietnamese had no right to tell other Vietnamese how to live, but the United States enjoyed a manifest right to kill by the millions in the interest of telling Koreans and Vietnamese how to live. The Koreans and Vietnamese, however, did not have the right to resist the American military.
According to Mr. Bush, anyone who would resist the American killing machine, which, as a matter of historical record, killed indiscriminately in Korea and Vietnam, was resisting only because the Americans "stood in the way" of their merciless designs.
The same pattern plays itself out in Iraq: intervene in another nation's affairs, stir the inevitable resentment that such intervention brings, and then use the resistance as evidence that those resisting are manifestly evil. The audacity of resistance thus serves as our excuse to continue the killing, as "others" are trying to foil our benevolent plan.
Who was the "other" in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq? Mr. Bush would tell you that the "other" was large segments of the indigenous population. In other words, the "other" are the people who actually live there. I would tell you the "other" was the country that sent its armies 7,000 miles to intervene.
IV
"The communists in Korea and Vietnam were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of humanity. They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on others."
Well, in my reading of the past, the communists in Korea and Vietnam, both nations arbitrarily cut in two by the West and the Soviets following World War II, were driven by a merciless vision for the proper ordering of their own countries. What audacity! They killed Americans because we stood in the way of their attempt to force their ideology on themselves.
In Mr. Bush's reading of history, Koreans invaded Korea to impose a merciless version on others. Who are these "others"? What "others" were the Vietnamese trying to force their ideology upon? The only "other" in either equation was the United States, who intervened in civil wars in each of these countries and directly killed at least 4 million civilians to prevent these countries from acheiving their merciless vision of self-determination.
To hear Mr. Bush tell it, Koreans had no right to tell other Koreans how to live, and Vietnamese had no right to tell other Vietnamese how to live, but the United States enjoyed a manifest right to kill by the millions in the interest of telling Koreans and Vietnamese how to live. The Koreans and Vietnamese, however, did not have the right to resist the American military.
According to Mr. Bush, anyone who would resist the American killing machine, which, as a matter of historical record, killed indiscriminately in Korea and Vietnam, was resisting only because the Americans "stood in the way" of their merciless designs.
The same pattern plays itself out in Iraq: intervene in another nation's affairs, stir the inevitable resentment that such intervention brings, and then use the resistance as evidence that those resisting are manifestly evil. The audacity of resistance thus serves as our excuse to continue the killing, as "others" are trying to foil our benevolent plan.
Who was the "other" in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq? Mr. Bush would tell you that the "other" was large segments of the indigenous population. In other words, the "other" are the people who actually live there. I would tell you the "other" was the country that sent its armies 7,000 miles to intervene.
IV
In Mr. Bush's world, after the liberals and the media sold us out and we withdrew from Vietnam, "the price of American withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens". This is textbook truth, at the undying expense of the whole truth. The whole truth is that the price of American intervention was paid by millions of innocents.
The American intervention in Vietnam, as noted above, killed millions of civilians. The American bombing and brief invasion of Cambodia destabilized the neutral regime there and allowed for the Khmer Rouge's rise. In Mr. Bush's reading, nobody died until the United States left Indochina. In Mr. Bush's view, the Khmer Rouge arose in a vacuum and would never have committed genocide if the United States was still in Vietnam.
First of all, it was the merciless Vietnamese who stopped the Cambodian genocide after the United States withdrew. Did the United States send aid to these countries it had ravaged for a decade? Sent reparations? Medecine? Food? No. The United States killed and killed and killed and then took its ball and went home. And everyone who was killed in the hell that the United States had created only died because the United States was not allowed to stay and kill indefinately.
And what is the implication of Mr. Bush's reading? It can only be that the United States should have stayed in Indochina indefinately, which means Mr. Bush should have kept not showing up for the Air National Guard indefinately. Staying and spending and killing for a few more years would have solved the problem, apparently. Stopping the killing, however, and allowing Indochina to sort out the devastation on its own terms was a cataclysmic defeat for the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.
The American intervention in Vietnam, as noted above, killed millions of civilians. The American bombing and brief invasion of Cambodia destabilized the neutral regime there and allowed for the Khmer Rouge's rise. In Mr. Bush's reading, nobody died until the United States left Indochina. In Mr. Bush's view, the Khmer Rouge arose in a vacuum and would never have committed genocide if the United States was still in Vietnam.
First of all, it was the merciless Vietnamese who stopped the Cambodian genocide after the United States withdrew. Did the United States send aid to these countries it had ravaged for a decade? Sent reparations? Medecine? Food? No. The United States killed and killed and killed and then took its ball and went home. And everyone who was killed in the hell that the United States had created only died because the United States was not allowed to stay and kill indefinately.
And what is the implication of Mr. Bush's reading? It can only be that the United States should have stayed in Indochina indefinately, which means Mr. Bush should have kept not showing up for the Air National Guard indefinately. Staying and spending and killing for a few more years would have solved the problem, apparently. Stopping the killing, however, and allowing Indochina to sort out the devastation on its own terms was a cataclysmic defeat for the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.
V
But wait! "There was another price to out withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle--those who came to our soil and killed thousands of innocents in September the 11th, 2001".
And here we have it: The 9/11 attacks were carried out because the United States withdrew from Vietnam. Arab Salafists killed thousands of innocents in New York in 2001 because the American military did not kill millions of more Vietnamese Buddhists in their homes in 1975. Huh. And Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy because John F. Kennedy did not order nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If the Salafists were rational, they would be scared of a country that could kill millions of people and then just leave them flat as if it bore no moral responsibility to help them reconstruct their wretched lives. The Salafists, of course, have never been acused of being rational.
But wait! "There was another price to out withdrawal from Vietnam, and we can hear it in the words of the enemy we face in today's struggle--those who came to our soil and killed thousands of innocents in September the 11th, 2001".
And here we have it: The 9/11 attacks were carried out because the United States withdrew from Vietnam. Arab Salafists killed thousands of innocents in New York in 2001 because the American military did not kill millions of more Vietnamese Buddhists in their homes in 1975. Huh. And Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy because John F. Kennedy did not order nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If the Salafists were rational, they would be scared of a country that could kill millions of people and then just leave them flat as if it bore no moral responsibility to help them reconstruct their wretched lives. The Salafists, of course, have never been acused of being rational.
In Bush World, if other Americans of his age had just continued to kill and die in Vietnam, Osama bin Laden would never have dared attack the United States. Why did the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor? Because the Union did not kill every citizen of the Confederacy?
VI
When arguments such as these are made, we owe it to ourselves to ask a question: what is the (usually unspoken) implication of the statement? The unspoken implication of Mr. Bush's argument is that American violence is the ultimate redemptive and liberating force on earth and that resistance to killing can only be met with more killing if liberation is to take hold. That our enemies our emboldened when we only kill 2 or 3 million peasants rather than, say, 6 or 7 million peasants.
And ask yourself, what is the logical endpoint of this inference? Without hyperbole, it is this: America can only be safe, and the world can only be liberated, when America proves willing to kill everyone on earth who would resist any component of American designs for their own countries. To do any less is to invite attack. When American loses its appetite for killing, human liberation becomes impossible.
1 comment:
I not absolutely understand, what you mean?
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