Here we go again. It
seems that at the end of every major military conflict since WWII where the US
unilaterally invades another country, the same self-centered, whining protests
from the US media can be heard lamenting the lack of groveling from said
country. "Look at all we've done for them," news commentators will decry. "And
for what? Do they thank us for our heroic, Herculean effort to bring freedom,
liberty and democracy to their country? Of course, not."
Recently, Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at
the US military for seeking to work with the Taliban in order to keep American
troops in the country longer. This immediately brought out the American media
to condemn Karzai and flatly refute his seemingly baseless claims. Fox News even lamented that after over 10
years, hundreds of billions of US dollars spent, and more than 2,000 US
military casualties, "This is the thanks we get."
Of course, the rest of American media followed suit and
equally condemned Karzai for his nasty comments. Apparently, no one in the
media remembers just six months ago when the US was fully engaged with the
Taliban to work on security issues in Afghanistan post US withdrawal. Gore
Vidal famously coined the true name of America, "United States of Amnesia," and
we can plainly see that once again, he is proven right.
The main problems I have with this is: (1) this isn't the
first time the US MSM has lied through its teeth to sow hatred and mistrust of
others around the world; (2) this isn't the first time that the American sheeple
have baa-ed their assent to the ludicrous and baseless accusations of the media;
and (3) millions of people and trillions of dollars have already been
needlessly wasted in this macabre death dance between the US and hapless and
unfortunate third-world countries and there is no sign that the perpetrators,
the US government and its lapdog media, have even learned anything from this.
Let's take a tiny trip down memory lane, shall we? I grew up
in the 1960s and, yes, I remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was
assassinated. I was 8 years old and remember staring at my Mom in bewilderment
as the news came over the radio. She didn't seem to be too distressed, so I
didn't think much of it. It was only years later that I fully understood the
consequences of what had happened in Dealey Plaza that day. My family was a
staunch John Birch Society group that wanted nothing to do with the likes of
that "Commie-lover" John Kennedy.
So in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson called for
retaliation against the North Vietnamese aggression at the Gulf of Tonkin, I remember
thinking that it was about time we kicked some Commie derriere. As 1965 and
1966 passed on, I was sure we were on our way to proving that US might makes US
right. I can remember 1967 being the year that I finally started questioning
why the same names of towns were being used in "new" offensives. Hadn't we
already been there and done that, I thought?
As the war dragged on, the media started portraying the
Vietnamese as evil minions of some dark overlord who hated our troops and did
evil things to them. The media would lash out that those evil Vietnamese mothers
would actually send their newborn babies, strapped with lethal bombs, over to
American GIs just to kill the soldier. These female saboteurs would lure an
innocent, unsuspecting GI down a dark alleyway and then have her hated, Commie
cohorts jump him and slit his throat. And we were supposedly there to free them
from the yoke of oppression, the ungrateful heathens.
By the time 1970s rolled around, I was fully frustrated with
the media and the war. We were learning more and more about our own atrocities,
our own foibles, and our own errors. The evil gooks suddenly had an equal
rival, the evil US war machine. By then, the US media started using the now
famous refrain, "They don't appreciate all that we've done for them. The
Vietnamese people don't deserve the blood of our fallen soldiers."
Now we have the US media, spearheaded by the ever ridiculous
Fox News, telling Americans how ungrateful the Iraqis are after we "liberated"
them from the evil, tyrannical Saddam Hussein. Let's not worry too much over
the fact that the US was also instrumental in the rise of Saddam Hussein to
power in the late 1970s. Let's forget for a second the fact that President
Ronald Reagan used Donald Rumsfeld to sell thousands of tons of chemical and
biological weapons that he eventually used against the Iranians as well as his
own people. Let's ignore for the moment the fact that then UN Secretary
Madeleine Albright stated in 1996 that 500,000 dead Iraqi babies resulting from the sanctions against Iraq was "worth it."
After illegally invading Iraq in 2003, with the entire world
telling us not to, and causing the death of upwards of a million Iraqis,
causing 80% unemployment in the nation for over 10 years, and creating an
economic and social catastrophe that will last for decades to come in Iraq, we
now have Fox News saying, "Ungrateful Iraq Starts 'Harassing,' 'Detaining' US
Contractors."
Yes, you guessed it. Those no-good-for-nothing, sons-of-camel-smackers,
are actually going to use THEIR OWN LAWS to strike back at the United States.
Don't they know that around 4,000 American soldiers have lost their lives and
that more than 2 trillion US taxpayer dollars have been spent on their country?
Do they realize how many American TV reality shows have been preempted to bring
us the latest yawning story in the battle to save our face in Iraq?
I'm afraid that the bottom line is, Americans have yet to
wake up to their own callous behavior on the world stage. We act like
4-year-old brats in front of other nations, pouting that everyone
misunderstands the truly godlike help we offer other nations. We stomp our feet
decrying the fact that they are eager to accept our "aid," all the while
rejecting the follow- up remedy that comes with that aid.
We very conveniently forget that those same countries never
asked for the aid in the first place. South Vietnam was a made-up country by
the UN in order to solve a French colonial problem. No one asked the US to butt
in. No one asked the US to lie about the Gulf of Tonkin and then send in
500,000 troops over 10 years and cause the death of 2 million Vietnamese,
Cambodians and Laotians.
Nobody asked the US to send secret military help to the Mujahedeen
in 1979 in Afghanistan in order to set up terrorist camps and terrorist
organizations like Al Qaeda to give the Soviet Union a "Vietnam-like" war to
fight. No one asked the US to then dismantle those very same terrorist camps
after 9/11 as a supposed final solution to "terrorism" around the world. No one
said that Afghanistan has to be invaded in order to destroy those same bases.
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