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By
now, we should all know the drill: The U.S. military is sent off
amidst lies and propaganda to rain death and destruction upon a foreign
land. Atrocities abound but go unmentioned until a set of "allegations"
are simply too obvious to disregard. Shortly thereafter, high-ranking
officials issue assurances that our [sic] troops are the good guys and
that any criminal behavior is the exception, not the rule.
In the most recent
variation on this theme, the high ranking official was Secretary of
Defense [sic] Donald Rumsfeld and his public assurance went as follows:
"We know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in
an exemplary manner. We also know that in conflicts things that
shouldn't happen do happen."
One needn't be a math major to recognize that even a passing knowledge
of American military history would produce enough war crimes and
atrocities to surpass Rumsfeld’s 0.1% solution ... but, in classic
corporate style, perhaps we should outsource such inventory work. We could
hire residents of Southeast Asia to tell us what percentage of U.S. troops
commit Haditha-like atrocities. Even better, let's really go multi-culti
and include some Koreans, Iraqis, Afghanis, Somalis, Filipinos, Japanese,
and Panamanians (to name but a few options). That might raise Rumsfeld’s
ratio a wee bit, huh?
However, for the sake of broadening the scope here, let's assume
that Rummy's got it right. Let's take him at face value that 99.9 percent
of American military personnel "conduct themselves in an exemplary
manner." This begs the question: If only one-tenth of one percent make
things happen that shouldn't happen, what is everyone else doing to make
us stand and sing "God Bless America" during the seventh inning stretch at
Yankee Stadium? How exactly does one define "exemplary manner"?
By Rumsfeld’s reckoning (and the standard company line of most
every politician, pundit, and peon) "exemplary" includes the use of Daisy
Cutters, cluster bombs, and B-52s dropping payloads from 15,000 feet.
One-tenth of one percent bad apples slaughter non-combatants without
orders ... but the other 99.9% are the heroes deploying depleted uranium,
napalm, and white phosphorus. "Exemplary" warriors with "core American
values" launch cruise missiles into crowded cities, blow up dams to
deliberately flood rice paddies and starve civilians, and destroy villages
in order to save them.
"Things that shouldn't happen do happen," Rumsfeld explains. But what
about all the stuff that this society accepts "should" happen? What should
happen are the assassinations of Operation Phoenix, the illegal invasion
of Operation Just Cause, and the collaborating with Nazis in Operation
Paper Clip. What should happen is shock and awe. What should happen is the
United States unselfconsciously using "Apache" helicopters to quell
"ethnic cleansing." What should happen is dropping atomic bombs on the
citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and perpetrating the near-extermination
of the Native American population.
The repugnant recent events throughout Iraq, of course, must be
investigated and the guilty parties brought to justice. But the greater
work lies in examining a culture so blind to its violent nature as to
spend time unashamedly splitting hairs between what transpired at Haditha
and what passes for "exemplary."
Mickey Z.
can be found on the Web at:
www.mickeyz.net.
His latest book is
50
American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American
Patriotism
(Disinformation Books, 2005).
Other Recent Articles and
Poems by Mickey Z.
*
Challenging
the Auto-Dependant Lifestyle
* Impeachment
is Just One Tiny Step
* The White
Washing of Muhammad Ali™
* 15 Minutes
of Radical Fame: America Meets Blum and Churchill
* Parenti Does
Culture
* An Interview
with John “Indio” Washington
* Target Iran:
A Day at the Arms Races
* Haiku
* Which Wolf
Will You Feed in 2006?
* GI Joe
Goes to Baghdad
* Stillborn
* Politics
on Your Plate
* An
Occupation Worth Applauding: Celebrate Un-Thanksgiving
* Stealing
Veteran's Day from the Militarists
* Strike for
Peace: An Interview with Brian Bogart
* POW Abuse:
Nothing New Going on Here
* An
Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski
* The Lords
of War: Arming the World at a Theater Near You
* Keep the
“Labor” in Labor Day: Remembering the Lowell Mill Girls
* The Bonus
Army
* Helen
Keller: Not Blind to War Crimes
* Vermin and
Souvenirs: How to Justify a Nuclear Attack
* “Karl Rove
Isn't the Only Monster Out There”: An Interview with Josh Frank
* “Guilty
Until Proven Innocent” An Interview with Dr. Walter M. Brasch
* Politics
and the Playing Field: An Interview with David Zirin
* Water on
the Brain
* The
Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later
* The Mother
of All Days
* May Day at
Yankee Stadium
* The
Endgame of an American Chess Genius
* The
Million Dollar Interview
* What Ward
Churchill Didn't Say
* Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
* “Piss on
Pity”: Clint Eastwood's “Million Dollar” Snuff Film
* I Want My
DDT
* A Wave
of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
* Crumbs
from Our Table: Direct Action for Third World Misery
*
Interview with a Tupamaro
* An
Interview with William Blum
* A Non-ABB
Take on Electoral Fraud
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