Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Falling
Three quotes to remember:
We went to Iraq on a flimsy excuse---a claims of "pre-emptive" self-defense that looked weak from the outset, and turned out to be totally baseless. We turned on a dime, and began insisting we were invading and occupying Iraq for the good of Iraqis, the Middle East, and the world. So difficult a moral tightrope---to fight a war to make peace, to destroy a regime to build up a better one as alien occupiers---would have given pause to a saint. Against the corrupting effects of war and the unpredictability of occupying a hostile country, it takes self-sacrifice and humility to stay good guys, instead of brutal bastards.
But we really went to Iraq looking to kick some ass, get some "revenge", secure some oil, threaten Iraqs neighbors, bully domestic opponents of war, and whip the public into a frenzy of fear. So moral corruption isn't so much a danger as part of the plan.
Our country is now the one that bombs innocents in their homes, invades countries without provocation, tortures prisoners who have not been so much as tried, allows its soldiers to kill civilians and pillage their homes if that's the easiest way to suppress the insurgency, and allows children under our rule to starve and die. There isn't much point in arguing whether we have made things better than they were under Saddam Hussein. We have become Saddam Hussein.
But that's not enough for many in our country. They want to revel in this evil. They want to give a medal to the Marine who shot an injured, unarmed captive in the head. And they condemn as a traitor the journalist who simply recorded the action. They even joke crudely about having him killed by the USMC. Is this your America? America is about freedom of speech, about showing the people the truth, and about protecting the innocent (or at least it used to be--now you can be locked up for a year for being Muslim). The Iraq war has brought out a fascist streak in the American public that terrifies and appalls me.
What next? When the neo-cons gin up the propoganda for a bombing campaign against Iran, how many in our country will say "Enough"? And how many will say "Yee-ha! Let's kill those Ay-rabs [sic]!"
Red-State moralists, the question is for you.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. ---Nietzsche
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. ---Orwell
They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace. ---Tacitus
We went to Iraq on a flimsy excuse---a claims of "pre-emptive" self-defense that looked weak from the outset, and turned out to be totally baseless. We turned on a dime, and began insisting we were invading and occupying Iraq for the good of Iraqis, the Middle East, and the world. So difficult a moral tightrope---to fight a war to make peace, to destroy a regime to build up a better one as alien occupiers---would have given pause to a saint. Against the corrupting effects of war and the unpredictability of occupying a hostile country, it takes self-sacrifice and humility to stay good guys, instead of brutal bastards.
But we really went to Iraq looking to kick some ass, get some "revenge", secure some oil, threaten Iraqs neighbors, bully domestic opponents of war, and whip the public into a frenzy of fear. So moral corruption isn't so much a danger as part of the plan.
Our country is now the one that bombs innocents in their homes, invades countries without provocation, tortures prisoners who have not been so much as tried, allows its soldiers to kill civilians and pillage their homes if that's the easiest way to suppress the insurgency, and allows children under our rule to starve and die. There isn't much point in arguing whether we have made things better than they were under Saddam Hussein. We have become Saddam Hussein.
But that's not enough for many in our country. They want to revel in this evil. They want to give a medal to the Marine who shot an injured, unarmed captive in the head. And they condemn as a traitor the journalist who simply recorded the action. They even joke crudely about having him killed by the USMC. Is this your America? America is about freedom of speech, about showing the people the truth, and about protecting the innocent (or at least it used to be--now you can be locked up for a year for being Muslim). The Iraq war has brought out a fascist streak in the American public that terrifies and appalls me.
What next? When the neo-cons gin up the propoganda for a bombing campaign against Iran, how many in our country will say "Enough"? And how many will say "Yee-ha! Let's kill those Ay-rabs [sic]!"
Red-State moralists, the question is for you.
