There has been a lot of internet chatter in recent days among Americans who style themselves as “leftists,” primarily because they admire Democratic politicians who believe they could do a better job of slaughtering Afghans, Iraqis, and coming soon, Iranians than the Republicans, and because “we can’t just cut and run.”
The crusade is undeniably popular, with politicians and their corporate sponsors as well as with voters, even though the voters have not, at least yet, received a benefit.
While fans may state different reasons for their support, as far as the voting classes are concerned, America does speak with one voice.
Unfortunately, it is a voice that willingly funds, and advocates crimes against humanity, and constitutes a much graver danger to ordinary Americans than any gaggle of CIA assets ever could.
Staying in Iraq is by definition, pro-war, or more accurately, pro-colonization, since a war tends to imply some sort of parity, which in Iraq, there is not.
In their unstinting efforts to outdo the right at the popular new American game of Good Germanhood, some “leftists” have been reduced to making the argument that while it is morally reprehensible, it is pragmatic.
It is, after all, making quite a bit of money for those who are intended to make money from it, and even people who have not received a benefit support it.
Therefore, any politician who wishes to continue in politics has little choice but to support it, and those who support him have little choice but to go along.
It is indeed the official policy of both monied political parties, and the number who oppose it, always small, shrinks daily.
That old unbridgeable gap again: it is just as impossible for Americans to comprehend the idea that the oil, and the people, and the land, are NOT US property by divine right, as it is for people in the Middle East to entertain the notion that they are.
A few hardline obstructionists, enemies of freedom and terrorists like myself find ourselves unable to resist the temptation to ask the pro-crusade faction questions like: If Iran decided that it did not like America’s form of government, and appointed itself the boss of the US and sent in Iranian gunmen and torturers and sexual predators to enforce its views.
What sort of arguments could Iran make that would successfully address American objection to this?
How could Iran successfully put down the anti-Iranian “insurgency?”
What would be your level of enthusiasm, if your town were Fallujized, for the Iranians sticking around, under any pretext whatsoever?
Under what circumstances, and for what price, would you join up with the Iranian occupying forces to become part of the New American Army, and on their orders, kill those of your neighbors that you were ordered to kill, and inform the occupation authorities if you suspected a friend or relative of harboring anti-Iranian sentiment?
Is it likely that you and your Bush-supporting neighbor might find yourselves fighting shoulder to shoulder against Iranian gunmen who have hauled both your sons off to be “interrogated” and destroyed both your homes?
Even though you might have some very big differences of opinion on just what type of government you want the US to have, would you be unified in your resolve, to use a popular meme, that it will be a government decided on and fought over by Americans, without the benefit of Iran?
Would it really matter to you, or your Bushista neighbor, what the Iranian government thought of your views, or his? Or would you both be focused on ousting the gunmen who were murdering your children, your neighbors and friends?
Is it possible that you might hold, even express the opinion that the United States does not belong to Iran, and it is none of Iran’s business what kind of government you have?
Do you think that even the most pro-Iranian Americans might say that by invading the US and occupying it and committing a host of atrocities against its people, had forfeited the right not only to even opine, or offer counsel, on the subject of the United States, but had also waived its right to be considered a sovereign nation with a legitimate government.
Do you think that pro-Iranian would be moved when it was pointed out that for Iran to withdraw from the United States would mean a certain, sudden and sharp decrease in revenue for several key Iranian corporations?
Would he to look at the burned and battered body of his little daughter and understand that for Iranian politicians, her slow, agonizing death was simply pragmatic?
Asking these questions, I think, puts an impossible burden on Americans, but it can be informative, too.
Americans simply cannot imagine themselves in such a position. It is beyond difficult, and I have come to accept, quite possibly culturally impossible, for Americans to follow an “it could be me” train of thought. That sort of thing does not happen to Americans, not regular people like your co-workers, your neighbors, your family.
That kind of thing happens to brown people far away who wear funny clothes and do not speak English, as seen on TV.
The reality divide is the problem. Iraqis see themselves as real live human beings, regular folks, with the same intensity that Americans see themselves that way.
When their children are maimed and murdered, their brothers tortured, their sisters and daughters shamed, the emotions they feel are exactly the emotions Americans would feel. There is no difference at all.
And no bomb, no napalm, no gas, no pain ray, no torture that can change that.
If only they were able to perceive it, Americans today are surrounded by an unprecedented smorgasbord of insight into just how events unfolded in Germany in the 1930s.
