A Respectful Admonition of Senator McCain

My father was a war hero. He served in the US Navy as a radar man aboard an LCT in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean; most notably, at Anzio. He nearly lost his life on several occasions and, as one of the younger, unmarried members of the crew, was often asked to perform dangerous duty in service to the nation.

My grandfather was a war hero, too. He served as an infantryman on the killing fields of Europe during the First World War, what was then called ‘The Great War’.

They have been many heroes who put their lives on the line for the people who served with them. It can easily be asserted that each and every member of the armed services who has seen action, whether or not they were wounded, be-medaled, captured or killed, are heroes worthy of our admiration and gratitude.

As my father and my grandfather expressed it when pressed to tell their stories, they did not consider themselves heroes but simple ordinary men who managed to stay alive because of the heroic actions of their buddies. This is a most common comment made by those we consider war-time heroes.

In interviews with the surviving members of Company E, 2^nd Battalion, 506^th Parachute Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division, ‘The Screaming Eagles’, whose story was recounted in the best-selling book, ‘Band of Brothers’ by military historian, Stephen Ambrose, each and every man down-played their own part and honored those they served with. Their commanding officer, Richard D. ‘Dick’ Winters expressed this attitude of noble humility best in an interview for the HBO series. When asked if he considered himself a hero, he responded with tearful eyes, that he wasn’t a hero, but he had served in the company of heroes.

My father, like Dick Winters and many thousands of other veterans, did not crow and puff themselves up by harping about their heroics during armed conflict. They were modest men who saw themselves as unextraordinary despite the extraordinary conditions under which they served. This attitude of gracious humility is not exclusive to any specific generation; it is an unspoken code that is followed by all of the combat veterans known personally to this writer.

Meaning no disrespect to Senator McCain, for he must be counted in the company of heroes, he does not share the noble humility of Dick Winters or my father or my grandfather. Senator McCain’s unceasing, self-serving reiteration of his experiences as a POW in order to brazenly advance his political career and this presidential campaign is most distasteful.

His service should be honored as should all be honored who have laid their lives on the line for the nation and their buddies. What is objectionable is Mr McCain’s vulgar, overweening use of his experiences in Vietnam to blatantly promote himself and the agenda of the Republican Party by playing off the sympathies and pity of the public.

Former senator and presidential hopeful, George McGovern, was once asked why he hadn’t trumpeted his war-time military career during the 1968 election campaign against Richard Nixon. After all, McGovern had served during World War II as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot in the Fifteenth Air Force, had flown 35 missions over enemy territory and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving his crew. Surely, his campaign as an anti-war candidate would have been strengthened if he had simply made the American electorate aware that he was an honest-to-god, decorated war hero. McGovern shook his head dismissively and replied, “That would have been unseemly.”

Senator McCain, end the incessant rehashing of your war stories. It’s unseemly in a hero.

Bush’s 2008 RNC speech: (Reading Between the Lines)

Borrowing the technology of 'Being John Malcovic', the author is able to provide annotation for Bush's speech to the RNC as heard through the mind of the 'Decider'.

And now, Ladies and Germs, give a warm Republican welcome to the 'Decider', the Commando-in-Chief, the President of the United States of America (for at least another fiscal quarter), GEORGE W. BUSH!

(Cue ‘Applause’…)

I know what it takes to be president.

(Unfortunately, I don’t have what it takes to be a good one.)

In these past eight years, I’ve sat at the Resolute desk

(That’s the one next to the water-cooler outside Cheney’s office.)

and reviewed the daily intelligence briefings, the threat assessments and the reports from our commanders on the front lines.

(Well, I didn’t actually ‘review’ cuz, y’know, I just hate to read but Dick or that nice Addington fella told me the gist of it.)

I’ve stood in the ruins of buildings knocked down by killers

(the ones in Jew York City and the ones in Iraq, too.)

and promised the survivors I would never let them down.

(I just hope that don’t hold me to it cuz I’ve got more brush to clear down on the ranch and that thing in Afghani-whatever ain’t going so well, Condi says.)

I know the hard choices that fall solely to a president.

(And I’m batting pretty close to 1.000 on getting them all wrong but ‘Hey’ you gotta swing for the fences, right? Or why step up to the plate? (I love a good baseball metaphor, don’t you?))

John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices.

(For me, it was my close ties with the Saudi Royal family and my personal ‘hot line’ to Jesus.)

He is ready to lead this nation.

(Down the primrose path, for four more years of economic ruin for the middle- class and the poor (who ever they are, I forget…) and prob’ly a couple more cool, never-ending conflicts to show the world we’re still #1 at ‘standing tall’ and kickin’ ass!)

From the day of his commissioning,

(when he barely passed the flight training – something we have in common!)

John McCain was a respected naval officer

(whose father and grandfather were admirals, so those tars and avi-a-tors had damned well better respect him.)

who made decisions on which the lives of others depended.

(Mostly of course it was decisions like when to drop bombs on the Vietnamese peasants and the like; y’know - ‘Life and Death’.)

As an elected public servant,

(of the wonderfully generous lobbyists of Big Oil and my other buddies)

he earned the respect of colleagues in both parties

(who are also deep in the pockets of Big Oil and my other buddies)

as a man to follow when there’s a tough call to make.

(F’rinstance when he has to figure out which of his mansions he wants to spend the weekend at.)

John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.

(Or is that ‘the service of story to self’? Whatever… But the ‘official’ story of John’s life 40 years ago is the story we’re selling here so even if all the facts don’t fit, Karl says that’s no matter seeing as Americans’re such a stupid bunch.)

Forty years ago in an enemy prison camp,

(I’ll never understand why those folks took being bombed and slaughtered so personally…)

Lieutenant Commander McCain was offered release ahead of others who had been held longer.

(Cuz they thought he was some kinda royalty or something, I guess, his father being an Admiral an' all.)

His wounds were so severe that anyone would have understood if he had accepted.

(Let’s see, about that time, I was outside Houston in the Air National Guard - when I wasn’t AWOL! Heh-heh)

John refused.

(I guess that just goes to show you there IS a difference between the two of us.)

For that selfless decision, he suffered nearly five more years of beatings and isolation.

(Let’s see, yeah, I was on my way to Harvard Law School. They sure were surprised to see a ‘C’ student sitting in class! Just goes to show, ‘It ain’t what you know but WHO you know.’ So, there, Obama-jama.)

When he was released, his arms had been broken, but not his honor.

(Prob’ly best not to mention that his nickname was ‘the Songbird’; he was hurtin’, after all. Just wish some of those Al Qaeda boys in Gitmo would start singin’…)

Fellow citizens,

(Not all of you, just the rich, connected ones, okay?)

if the Hanoi Hilton

(Always flash on that crotch-shot of Paris when I say that…)

could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country,

(Like, y’know, staying alive and that sort of stuff.)

you can be sure the ‘Angry Left’ never will.

(I’ll never understand why they’re so pissed. Why don’t they like me? I’m a pretty regular guy for a spoiled rich kid who’s led the country to ruin three different ways to Sunday. But that’s mostly Dick and Donnie’s doing, y’know. And that Addington guy and Paul and, and Condi.. and….)

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/cin_mysticalmccain.htm

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/McCAIN%20RADIO%20BROADCAST%20from%20Ha%20Noi%20060269.pdf

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account.html?PageNr=1

Nothing Personal, Senator McCain

This point has been raised before but it bears repeating.

The relentlessly chanted mantra of John McCain’s campaign has been his POW experience. Ignoring, for the sake of compassion, that McCain broke under torture and like many, many other tortured POWs, gave false testimony to his captors, let’s for a moment look at the reason of his serving in Vietnam.

As is well known, McCain was a Navy pilot. What is left unstated is that, as part of his duty, McCain bombed and strafed the people of Vietnam, their roads, their hospitals, their schools, their homes. The citizenry of Vietnam were no threat to the people of the United States. (Nor was their government.) The people of Vietnam were an impoverished, Third World nation emerging from the brutal and repressive colonization by France; a colonization that stripped the country of their natural resources and denied the people self-governance, democracy and freedom.

Where, in such a vile, despicable, murderous mission as was his, is the honor or the bravery?

Doing one’s patriotic duty of service to one’s nation most emphatically does not include service to tyranny.

http://www.vietnamveteransagainstjohnmccain.com/index.htm

American Exceptionalism

Of all of the tenets of the secular pseudo-religion, Americanism, the principle dogma is that of American Exceptionalism. Put simply, the precept of ‘American Exceptionalism’ is the notion that the American people, the American way of life and the American form of Democracy are a result of holy providence and are of divine origin and inspiration. It is a most pernicious concept; one upon which most, if not all, of the other false creeds of Americanism are based and to which most if not all of America’s failings can be attributed.

On August 20, 2008, Andrew Bacevich, a conservative historian, Boston University professor and retired colonel who spent twenty-three years serving in the US Army, appeared on ‘Democracy Now!’ to discuss his new book entitled “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism”. He stated, “Well, this is not an idea that’s original with me. It’s clear that from the founding of the Anglo-American colonies, from the time that John Winthrop made his famous sermon and declared that “we shall be as a city upon a hill” a light to the world—it’s clear that, from the outset, there has been a strong sense among Americans that we are a special people with a providential mission.”

A providential mission. This is precisely where this precept becomes dangerous.

Is America exceptional? Yes, most definitely; the Republic of the United States of America is exceptional. It was exceptional at its inception and it was founded by exceptional men. There is no rationally sustained argument which can negate that. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence are all exceptional documents, each with their own merit, historically, philosophically and in many ways besides.

The USA is exceptional, too, in the matter of freedom of speech and personal expression. Not only is this freedom at the core of the law of the land and boldly evident at the birth of the nation, but it has been internalized by all of its citizens for generations and occasionally even exercised by some.

America is exceptional for a whole slew of reasons. Only the most ardent ideologues would disagree in principle. It should be noted, however, that the term ‘exceptional’ does not exclude negative attributes or conditions. The canon of ‘Exceptionalism’, however, invariably connotes righteousness and imparts the odor of sanctity to all things American.

How America has shown itself by its actions to be exceptional but by no means righteous are many; exceptionally aggressive in foreign policy, exceptionally bellicose, exceptionally parochial, exceptionally arrogant and exceptionally reluctant to abolish slavery, to name a few examples. The point of this article is, however, not the failings of American policy but the debasement of America’s exceptionally high-minded principles by the sentimental attachment to the false doctrine of ‘American Exceptionalism’.

The danger of subscribing to the concept of ‘Exceptionalism’ is in the unthinking, unwitting belief that Americans and America have the sole, exclusive claim to being exceptional and thus according to the accepted precept, are righteous in all things. The danger of the wide-spread belief in such a notion by the citizens of a country should be obvious; it leads to chauvinistic, nationalistic policies such as ‘preventative war’, ‘regime change’ and empire building.

Moreover, the danger of such self-centered, imperialistic policies is compounded and exacerbated dramatically by the attendant belief that these policies and all policies of the USA stem from ‘a providential mission’. Citing ‘divine guidance’ to justify government policy nullifies rational debate and dissent, the foundation of democratic governance.

George W. Bush, a self-professed ‘man of God’, has claimed not only that his presidency is a ‘divine mission’ but that he, himself, is guided by his faith, by his God. In June 2002, for example, he sermonized to West Point graduates, “We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name.” Bush and his administration have made it abundantly clear that they do not want to hear dissent or debate on the matters of his ‘mission’. One need only recall Mr Bush’s disdainful frat-boy flippancy when faced with criticism or Mr Cheney’s rash and contemptuous disregard for the opinions of the vast majority of Americans on the matter of the occupation of Iraq to find verification for this assertion.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SypeZjeOrY4

The resultant atmosphere of zealous, self-righteous piety smacks of the same sort of religious-based fundamentalism that is derided and anathematized when proclaimed by radical Islamists, to offer but one example. When supernatural power, other-worldly agents and mystic intuition are the basis on which governance is determined, the natural world of humanity and the means by which humans chart the course of their lives (such as logic, rational discourse, education, and empathy) are undermined and disregarded as superfluous. In the more extreme cases, disputation of the ‘providential mission’ and ‘divine guidance’ is condemned as blasphemy and subject to harsh punishment; often ostracism or death.

While an unwillingness to adhere to ‘Americanism’ and the tenet of ‘American Exceptionalism’ might not lead to immolation or decapitation, those journalists who have dared to question the ‘divine inspiration’ and wisdom of Mr Bush’s ‘mission’ have most assuredly found themselves excommunicated and barred from the hallowed sanctum of the White House press room. Furthermore, citizens voicing their dissent by silently displaying placards or slogan-emblazoned T-shirts in the presence of administration officials have been arrested and sequestered. A careful examination of the public record will, most assuredly, provide many more examples of free speech being sacrificed at the altar of ‘Exceptionalism’.

The systematic ostracism of non-believers is clearly evidenced by the well-publicized “public demonstration zones” at the upcoming conventions of the two major political parties. These euphemistically named holding pens and detention centers for dissidents have been condemned by the ACLU and other Civil Rights organizations as a violation of the First Amendment Right to Free Speech. It is tragically ironic that one of America’s rightful claims to being exceptional is at risk because of the fearful over-reaction by those of the ‘Exceptionalism’ sect.

The tautological, circumlocutory argument of American Exceptionalism can be stated thusly: “We are on a providentially inspired mission and are guided by a ‘Higher Power’, therefore whatever our actions or policies, we cannot be in the wrong.”

Or as Elwood Blues put it, “We’re on a mission from God.”

Professor Andrew Bacevich put it this way, however, “…to view international politics through this lens of good and evil leads you to vastly oversimplify and I think also leads you to make reckless decisions.” It may be added that reckless decisions lead to reckless actions from which we will not find absolution in worldly or other-worldly courts by simply ‘sticking to our guns’ and muttering the mantra of American Exceptionalism.

Notable Quotable from Co-President & CEO-USA, Dick Cheney

“Principle is okay up to a certain point, but principle doesn’t do any good if you lose.” Richard B. Cheney.

But, then again Mr Vice-President, what good is a man who has lost his principles? What good is a man without honor? A man who is neither principled nor honorable is not a man worthy of the office of Vice-President of the United States of America or anything else worth winning or losing.

Want to know why our republic is in such perilous straits? Our leaders are men, like Mr Cheney, who have abandoned honor and the principles upon which our nation was founded for their personal gain.

Quote taken from John W. Dean’s ‘Worse Than Watergate’ and attributed to Ron Nessen’s ‘It Sure Looks Different from the Inside’ (Chicago: Playboy Press, 1978), p 230

Three Pots Calling the Kettle Black

I hope that you haven’t missed the most recent revival of this old Vaudeville shtick. The sublime comedic timing displayed by these three pros of the greasepaint is simply not to be missed!

Senator John McCain, playing the irascible codger: "My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression."

President George W Bush, in the role of the baudy, BMoC: "With its actions in recent days, Russia has damaged its credibility and its relations with the nations of the free world. Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the twenty-first century."

As the saucy hat-check girl, Condi Rice:”Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century.”

Then, all three pull missile defense systems out of their pants, plant ‘em in Poland and nuke Iran!

You got to see it to believe it!

The Myth of American Moral Authority

Pulitzer Prize winner, Ron Suskind, has come out with a book entitled ‘The Way of the World’ that asserts convincingly that the Bush administration ordered the CIA to forge a letter covering their collective derriere about WMDs in Iraq and Saddam’s taking delivery of yellow cake uranium from Niger.

As despicable as this recounted action is (one of so many the Bushites have perpetrated that a whole new lexicon is presently being developed by the Oxford Dictionary) and as dismally unsurprising as this latest criminal subterfuge is (the Bushies, after all, have been preparing for the ‘End Time’; with ‘Owl-mighty Gawwd’ on your side, you can do whatever the Hell you want, apparently) there is, regrettably, one ‘Revelation’ that Mr Suskind has not experienced; that regarding the prevailing myth of American moral authority. At least, not as evidenced by his interviews on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! there isn’t.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/index.jhtml?episodeId=178981

Mr Suskind ended his pitch on the Daily Show by reiterating his ‘book-tour blurb’, which Stewart had stifled half-way through the interview with a jibe about how crassly Suskind was touting his book. Suskind, in summation, stated melodramatically that “The book’s all about how America’s moral authority has bled away and we need to restore it to fight the battles that we need to fight and, y’know, the way to do it’s with truth!”

Can I get an ‘Ay-man’ for the rapturous delusion of American moral authority?

The vain, prideful fantasy that America possesses intrinsic moral authority is both a ludicrous and harmful one. It has been used to white-wash the ruinous, foul effects of American foreign and domestic policy for centuries. The American people, from the cradle to the grave, are inculcated with the precept that America can do no moral wrong; that America has a ‘lock’ on righteousness and so, ipso facto, any apparent wrong-doing is done by ‘loose cannons’ and renegades. The promulgation of this appealing, though unsubstantiated testament has resulted in its being piously accepted as a basic tenet of the secular pseudo-religion of ‘Americanism’.

Supporting examples which demonstrate this claim of moral authority are rarely if ever offered. Why should they be? Like any belief system, ‘Americanism’ requires no proof. Notwithstanding ‘faith’ in Americanism, the maxim has little relationship to fact and so creates a cognitive dissonance amongst the citizens of the United States. The specious myth of American moral authority is worn by American leaders (and the American people) as a precious, reverential vestment to cover up the numerous, depraved, heinous acts of murderous violence and dehumanizing social injustice that comprise the history of the American Republic. Given America’s contemptible history, Americans cannot rightly lay claim to moral authority or the moral high ground yet, they do. For to reject the tenet of American moral authority is to renounce one’s faith in Americanism, declare oneself ‘unpatriotic’ and so suffer derision and ostracism from the body politic.

Although doctrines of faith, by definition, are held to be unassailable by logic, even so, examples of America’s moral failures might serve to contravene the indiscriminant, unthinking acceptance of the sacrosanct belief in America’s inherent moral ascendency.

Let’s start with the unconscionable exclusion of indigenous Americans, African-Americans and women of all races from those who were granted ‘Liberty’ at the signing of America’s most hallowed documents and the effective denial of the rights of full citizenship to those citizens for the greater part of the life of the Republic. Not exactly brimming with righteousness and moral rectitude, one might say. Then again, such injustice was part and parcel of early, less civilized times and one might facilely shoo away guilt over these shameful inequities, if one were a true believer in the dogma of Americanism.

Moving on from social injustice to the atrocities of war, perhaps the ‘True Believe’ will consider the slaughter and subjugation of (fill-in-the-blank) by America the righteous as permissible evidence of moral turpitude.

1. The indigenous people of the American continent, the Native Americans
2. The indigenous people and citizens of the Philippines following the Spanish-American War
3. The indigenous people of the Hawaiian archipelago
4. The civilian population of Viet Nam
5. The people of Haiti
6. The people of Guatemala
7. The people of El Salvador
8. The people of Nicaragua
9. The people of Panama
10. The people of Iraq
11. All of the above and more

If could be argued that war is a monstrous aberration in which atrocities are an unfortunate, yet integral part. (Collateral damage is the modern, accepted terminology for the slaughter of civilians and while euphemisms such as this and ‘non-combatant’ are wide spread, they do not negate or excuse criminal, immoral acts.) Notwithstanding the parenthetical proviso, as General William Tecumseh Sherman correctly observed, “War is Hell!”. Thus one might be disposed to dismiss the aberrant behavior of men on the field of battle fighting for their lives as admissible to this argument.

The heat of battle, however, would not mitigate the murderous result of aerial bombardment, as the orders and the executions for such ruthless assaults are done at a cool, calculated distance. Since the Second World War, the people of China, Korea, Indonesia, Cuba, Peru, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Libya, Iran, Kuwait, Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia, and Yugoslavia have all suffered ‘death from above’ delivered by the United States in undeclared wars. These horrific, cold-blooded incidences of mayhem might register as contravening evidence with those whose faith in American’s moral strength is less certain.

Furthermore, if the many adherents of Americanism would stop even for a moment to meditate on the documented assassinations committed by CIA operatives as part of numerous coup d’états when the brutal and corrupt dictatorships of Mobuto, Trujillo, Somoza, Marcos, the Duvaliers (pere et fil), Suharto, Noriega and Saddam Hussein were installed and maintained to suit American interests, they would start to sense that not even the US State Department could be so naïvely bumbling in the matters of statecraft as to fail to recognize the glaring lack of moral fiber displayed, not only by these despots - certainly not by the murderers in the service to these men - but also by the US administration officials who befriended them and ordered and carried out extra-legal executions.

(Visit the site of ‘Friendly Dictator Trading Cards’ for more fun facts about America’s propensity to support fascist autocrats when the money is right.) http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Dictators_Home.html

Possibly, borderline apostates should more closely examine and consider the presidentially ordered, CIA directed and financed coups in Chile, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, etc. that violently and bloodily over-threw the democratically elected governments of those nations because their policies, which strove to place the needs of their own people above the greed of US-based multi-nationals in defiance of the long-standing dictum for subservience to American interests, were perceived and propagandized as committing the odious ‘crime’ of promoting ‘leftist/Marxist’ policies.

Conceivably, the Faithful might note America’s determined, decades-long obstruction by veto of repeated UN resolutions calling for a Palestinian State and fair and equitable distribution of vital resources – resolutions supported by near world-wide unanimity which in all likelihood would end most of the animus and violence in the region - while at the same time successive American administrations have been politically, materially and financially supporting the continued dehumanization of the Palestinian people in gruesome, slow-motion genocide by the State of Israel. How might 30 years of America stone-walling the basic human rights of the people of Palestine be viewed as just and righteous?

Should the adherents to the creed think the above examples reference events too remote in the past to be conveniently pondered, how ‘bout the recent spate of bi-partisan windging and grousing over the astronomical costs of rebuilding Iraq and the accompanying morally bankrupt proposal that the Iraqis pony up and pay for reparations themselves for the diabolical mess the Bush administrations have made of their country? Such a base, execrable retreat from accountability can hardly be seen as a manifestation of charity, fair-mindedness or moral superiority.

Indeed, if the Faithful were simply to focus on the holy ‘War on Terror’ as decreed by Bush the Second in his infamous State of the Union speech in January, 2002, there is a virtually endless list of atrociously immoral actions committed, codified and condoned that coldly testify to a deplorable absence of virtuousness, moral strength, honor and honesty.

To Wit:

• The suspension of habeas corpus, the keystone of the British and American legal systems
• The denial of due process,
• The kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of suspects,
• The torture and dehumanizing abuse of those illegally detained,
• The lying, dissembling and prevaricating about torture, kidnapping, extraordinary rendition, etc.
• The murder of thousands upon thousands of Afghani men, women and children,
• The slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children,
• The criminal, forced displacement of 5 millions Iraqis,
• The slaughterous assaults on the people inhabiting the tribal areas of Pakistan,
• The effective revocation of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of:
• freedom of speech
• freedom of assembly
• redress of grievances
• freedom from self-incrimination
• freedom of privacy
• The forging of documents indemnifying and exonerating Bush apparatchiks of wrong-doing
• The perjurious and evasive testimonies given before Congress by Bush operatives
• The blatant, contemptuous refusal to answer Congressional subpoena to give testimony regarding the aforementioned points
• Etc
• Etc

In light of the extremely long check list of recent atrocities, war crimes and institutionalized injustice, coupled with those committed over the course of the history of the American Republic and presented with rigorous brevity herein, what justification does anyone have to profess America’s moral authority?

A chorus of indignation at the effrontery of the charge laid here that America’s traditional claim to the cherished tenet of its ‘moral authority’ is naught but vapid propaganda must surely have reached a fevered pitch of apoplexy, sending some to grope for needed cardiovascular medication and compelling others to furiously bang out flaming blogs of condemnation and setting still other devotees to shrieking vile epithets and accusations of un-Americanism.

Heaven, forefend!

“At least, Americans don’t strap C4 to the backs of women and children to blow up shopping malls.” one can hear the patriots piously clamor. “At least, Americans don’t suicidally fly airliners into buildings killing thousands of innocent people!”

The response to this straw man’s retort should be obvious: When America has cruise missiles, smart bombs, cluster bombs, bunker busters approaching the destructive power of small nuclear devices, unmanned aircraft armed with laser-guided Hellfire missiles, F-16’s and satellite surveillance, where is the need for such primitive methods of assault as suicide bombers or kamikaze flight plans?

The disparity in the result of an attack by a flight of B-52s or B-2s or A-10s or AC-130s or even a single MQ-1 Predator ‘drone’ when compared to that of a young extremist liveried in a bandoleer of high explosives or that of the 9-11 hijackers need not be examined in detail except by those irredeemably blinded by their faith in Americanism or those simply depraved. All of the aforementioned methods of attack are horrific but, to belabor the obvious for the sake of completing the argument, coordinated attacks by the most formidable military force in human history leave tens or hundreds of thousands of casualties in their wake. Even the horrendous loss of life on September 11, 2001 pales in comparison to the probably casualties wrought during the opening night of Operation Enduring Freedom. Though the comparison in no way decriminalizes the malevolent acts perpetrated on that bright, sunny day it may provide a fresh perspective from which to view the murderous immoral acts of the American government.

Granted, the American people and American administrations have undertaken many noble, humanitarian projects. The premise being argued here is not that Americans are wholly without merit or virtue. The contention is that Americans, demonstratively, do not have the right to claim intrinsic moral authority. There is no denying that the Marshall Plan was of true benefit to the people of Europe, for instance. (Never mind that the lion’s share of the funds went directly into the pockets of American corporations.) Charitable, humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, C.A.R.E. and others depend on the contributions of generous, compassionate Americans. Moreover, slavery was eventually abolished though its abolition in the USA took place long after all other industrialized nations had made slavery illegal and anathema. Suffrage was eventually won by American women after a prolonged struggle though glass ceilings and inequality in the work-place persist to this day.

Therefore, no doubt, there are a few bright lights in American history which play a counterpoint to the many harsh, immoral discordances outlined previously. These contrapuntal incidences only obscure, as through a distorted lens, the sanguine, savage landscapes which have been the result of American foreign and domestic policy and serve as rationale for the reprehensible, megalomaniacal, holier-than-thou conceit expressed by the aphorism in question.

We, as Americans, must ask ourselves if there has ever been any other nation on earth that has so brazenly used such a hypocritical, self-serving, self-deluding, propagandistic platitude to gloss over inveterate wrong-doing. Indeed, there are and there have been, but none of the possible comparisons are in the least bit complimentary.

That this polemic has not made effort to differentiate the citizens of the United States from the policies of the government is not an oversight nor a tactful omission. As a republic, we, the people, are ultimately responsible for the actions of our elected representatives and their appointees. Claiming that the White House, the Houses of Congress, the State Department, the CIA or any other branch or agency of our government have taken actions for which the American electorate shares no responsibility or culpability is an untenable assertion if America is a truly functioning democracy. To excuse American citizens from the sins of its government is to confess that the United States is a ‘failed state’, one having only hollow, insubstantial rituals of democracy rather than viable democratic processes. Much more can and will be said on this matter at another time.

America’s supposed ‘moral authority’ is a sham; a fantasy that any bright adolescent could perceive as a charade if only the straight, unspun facts were presented honestly. It is regrettable that a journalist of Mr Suskind’s stature has not seen beneath the reverential cloak that disguises the bitter, sorry truth of America’s political character and as an apostate, publically renounced the false creed of America’s moral authority. By so doing, his investigative journalism would be under-scored and elevated to loftier heights and his service to Truth and the American public would have greater, lasting effect than does merely exposing the political iniquities, however heinous, of specific culprits.