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Rhetoric Distorts Realities
The United States has not only glossed over the brutality of tyrants on our side; it has often actively supported and funded such brutality. Where was the moral clarity when Kennedy backed an authoritarian regime in South Vietnam that had almost no support among its people? Where was it when Reagan supported vicious military dictatorships in Central America that killed tens of thousands of innocent people? . . . Or, what about the record of Bush's father, our commander in chief during the Gulf War? The U.S. military deliberately destroyed much of the civilian infrastructure of Iraq, including sewage- and water-treatment plants and electrical-generation facilities far from the supposed battle theater in Kuwait. The military itself predicted such attacks would kill civilians, as they were designed to do and did. . . . Great powers have always gone about the business of conquest while explaining it was in the interests of the conquered. So, when the British ravaged India and extracted much of its wealth, it wasn't described as greed but as the grand enterprise of bringing civilization and religion to the natives--the white man's burden. The United States used similar rhetoric in its nearly complete extermination of indigenous people in the conquest of North America. . . . Although sold to the public as a war on terrorism, the war in Afghanistan and the war the Bush administration is planning against Iraq are about control of those strategically crucial, energy-rich regions. The United States seeks not to own the oil outright, but rather control the flow of oil and oil profits. . . . If moral judgments are applied consistently, it's clear that the United States, like other great powers, has much to answer for.

posted by LoZo 12:34 PM