Standing By Your Sex-Hobbyist -Man; Because It's Your Fault Too?

Operation Enduring Idiocy:

The Deadly Child's Play of U.S. Politics

by CHRIS FLOYD
ORIGINAL HERE


We must be willing to give up the myth of the "noble soldier" who "selflessly sacrifices" his life for the glory of the Perfect and Good United States -- and see that these individuals died in a criminal war of aggression launched to consolidate and expand America's hegemonic role, a goal embraced by almost every leading politician, Republican and Democratic, over many decades of entirely avoidable conflict, chaos and death.

Arthur Silber, as always, talks good and damning sense about the maddening moral idiocy of the entire American establishment and the whole "national debate" about the Iraq war. He limns with brutal accuracy the inability of our movers and shakers -- and most of the public they manipulate so thoroughly -- to comprehend the true nature of this bloodsoaked hell: that it is a monstrous crime, conceived in evil, steeped in murder, breeding death, brutality and corruption in everything it touches.

Silber's penetrating ire is sparked off by the witless flap over John McCain's remark about the "waste" of American lives in shoddy execution of the war. McCain, like Barack Obama before him, quickly and cravenly apologized for letting this one little sliver of truth escape their lips -- for as we all know, it is poor form, a terrible social faux pas, to mention the rotting corpse beneath the canape table at the great Beltway Cocktail Party. The lives were wasted -- cynically wasted, diabolically wasted -- because they were devoured in the service of depraved criminals seeking loot and dominion, and for no other purpose whatsoever. Yet not only is it impossible to acknowledge this waste in polite company, one cannot even remotely admit that the entire action itself is criminal, that, as Silber points out, it entails not just the waste of tens of thousands of dead and maimed American soldiers but also the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, shredded, chewed, gutted and sent into darkness by the honking goons and lumbering husks who rule us.

From the pathetic little media spit-up over the remarks of McCain and Obama, Silber moves on to a more sweeping look at the many malign effects the war crime is inflicting on America and the world, as well as examining some of the unspoken assumptions that drive the bipartisan arrogance and ignorance of U.S. foreign policy. Here's a brief glimpse at one of his insights:

Moreover, this catastrophe without end has severely damaged our nation's military, making us more vulnerable to actual threats we might face in the future. And no, Mr. Bush, Senator Reid, and assorted "major liberal bloggers," the answer is not to enthusiastically and very expensively create a still "bigger military." We already spend more on defense than most of the rest of the world combined. Why in God's name should our military, in the words of Chalmers Johnson, regularly "deploy[] well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations" -- and why should we have over 700 bases in 130 countries around the globe? There is only one reason for insanity of this kind: we are absolutely convinced we are "entitled" to rule the world, by military force on a scale never before seen in all of world history. If that is what you believe, then say so -- and be damned.

That last line says it all. It's time to stop all the baby talk, time to strip off the sugar-coating over the reality of what these policies really mean, and have always meant. And it's time -- way past time -- to damn the authoritarians, the imperialists, and the silk-suited murderers for what they are, and drive them out of office, out of public life, and into the prisons where they belong.

A Nation of Stupid Children, Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies (Arthur Silber)
Excerpts: The truth is infinitely worse than that these lives have been "wasted": these deaths have served to strengthen our enemies and weaken our own country in countless ways that our actual enemies could never have achieved on their own. That these lives have been "wasted" is the best one can say, not the worst. They are the greatest boon our enemies could dream of. These lives have not been "wasted": they are the precious tribute laid at the feet of our enemies, by our own leaders in the pursuit of indefensible and criminal aims.

Of course, the recognition of this truth requires that we act like adults, and that we are capable of coherent thought, shorn of lies. We must be willing to give up the myth of the "noble soldier" who "selflessly sacrifices" his life for the glory of the Perfect and Good United States -- and see that these individuals died in a criminal war of aggression launched to consolidate and expand America's hegemonic role, a goal embraced by almost every leading politician, Republican and Democratic, over many decades of entirely avoidable conflict, chaos and death.

Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His work has appeared in print and online in venues all over the world, including the Nation, CounterPunch, Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Il Manifesto, the Moscow Times and many others. He is the author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, and is co-founder and editor of the "Empire Burlesque" political blog.