OpEdNews » And We Think We Are Free Part 1-

Tags for This Article:

Populum Tag Cloud Control Panel
	Fine tune your search to access content

Articles	Links
Diaries	Products
Events	All

All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs

From:
Month Day Year

To:
Month Day Year

Alphabet Popularity	Count ON Count OFF
This Level	Sub-levels

Tag(s): Freedom; Government
Add to My Group

February 7, 2008 at 22:52:29

And We Think We Are Free Part 1-

by Nolan Page 3 of 3 page(s)

www.opednews.com

SAVE FAVORITES

VIEW FAVORITES

(0.0 from 0 ratings) View Ratings | Rate It

And after the war - the Big One - WWII. What did the average German feel? Was it remorse? shame? guilt? Yes, some Germans felt all three. But within the majority was an underlying hypocrisy. Although some confessed that their government's actions were terrible, few were able to say that the actions of their government "violated the precepts of Christian, civilized, lawful life"[6] and even fewer were able to say that "I" knew it was wrong when it was happening and "I" knew it was un-Christian, uncivilized and unlawful and "I" pretended it wasn't.

Does this sound vaguely familiar? Did Abu Ghraib sound un-Christian, uncivilized and unlawful to we Americans or did it sound like a sophomoric college prank? Did the second set of photos from Abu Ghraib, which were finally released to the public after having been screened and judged by our lawmakers to be so graphically horrific that the American public should not be allowed to see them, goad we Americans into finding who was REALLY responsible, impeaching the responsible party and trying his underlings for war crimes? Did the description of the destruction of Fallujah seem right to us? Did we Americans try to pry open the CIA's rendition operation and prosecute all the way to the gas chamber those responsible for rendition and torture and black prisons? No, because we know that those responsible would not be able to wage wars of any type - aggression, defense or entertainment - in the future in our names. We know that wars of aggression are "necessary" for our comfort and survival. We know that without the occasional, necessary war we won't be able to take the family on the annual vacation in the safety of the family SUV. Fighting the terrorists "over there" is better than having to drill off our own pristine coasts and find our own oil. Is this realization one of hypocrisy, self-delusion, convenience or self-preservation?

References:

[1] www.wrmea.com/archivesjun2003/0306036

[2]

1 | 2 | 3

nkanders@bellsouth.net

Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea who was once a "conservative" until he found there was nothing left to conserve and as a veteran hates to see a tour in Korea go to waste.