We Americans like to think of ourselves as civilized people.  Historically, we have supported our government in war under the belief that our government and our soldiers are honorable and that we do not engage in unjust wars.  Ugly things like genocide, torture, naked aggression, raping, pillaging, and scorched earth policies are things that others do, not us.  Since we are so good and virginal in every sense, we reason that others hate us only because of our goodness and purity.  If they knew the truth about us, we think, they would love us.


Yet, if this is so, why is it that we need to hide from the world the activities of our soldiers and intelligence agents over seas?  Why cannot we, the “liberators” of Iraq, show the world the lovely photos of our soldiers at work Abu Ghraib?  Why must the CIA consider destroying the records of American conduct in the prisons at Guantanamo?  We are so pure, clean, honorable, and all, aren't we?  What have we got to worry about?

Could it be that those baby faced soldiers we praise and pay tribute to are not as honorable as we would like to believe?  According to the latest body keeping the Oval Office seat warm, release of photos showing the activities of our soldiers, activities ordered by George Bush and Dick Cheney, would make the world hate us more than they already do and would, as a consequence, endanger the lives of our soldiers.   Just how horrible are these images?  We shall discuss that shortly, but before we do, let us consider this claim itself by translating it into smaller statements:

1. If the world knew what we were really like, they would hate us more than that already do.
2. If the world knew what our soldiers do, they would rise up and kill our soldiers.
3. Our government cares about the lives of our soldiers, and so we cannot release the photos.

These are interesting assertions.  The first assertion implies that anyone who knows the truth about us, would hate us, not because of who we are, but because of what we do.  This contradicts strongly Bush's assertion that “they hate us for our freedom.”

The second assertion implies that our soldiers are monsters, on an order equal to that of the worst soldiers history has known, for I know of few cases in history where populations have risen up to fight only because a nation's soldiers were monstrous brutes.  In short, this statement implies that the soldiers we are told to support unconditionally are war criminals.  Said differently, supporting our troops is aiding and abetting war crimes.

On the third assertion, I ask you this.  If the lives of our soldiers are valued by our government, why are they fighting two unnecessary wars?  Why do we throw away their lives in defense of a lie and then recoil when their lives are endangered by the truth?  Does anyone out there see the irony in that?

The next question to ask ourselves is what exactly did our soldiers do in Abu Ghraib?  According to those in the know, our soldiers, on order of Bush and Cheney, raped children in front of their captive mothers.   Their brutality was so monstrous that their mothers begged to be killed rather than live with the memory of what was done.  Add this to the knowledge we already have of beating innocent captives to death, raping female captives, and torturing captives.  The next time you see an American soldier, picture that in your mind – picture that soldier raping a little boy in front of his mother in a prison cell.  That is what the world sees when the world sees our soldiers.


I can think of no offense that a soldier could commit worse than those committed by our own.  Future generations will watch movies retelling the stories of our soldiers and those stories will be more brutal than the Nazi era movies we grew up watching.  Just as you and I vividly see the image of Nazi madmen lining civilians up at a wall and gunning them down, the next generations were see American G.I.'s in uniform raping little boys and girls in front of the mothers while mentally defective Americans stack naked bodies of men in piles and pose before the mountains of flesh for personal pictures.  It is hard to see the Romans or Mongol hordes as worse than us.  We are at the pinnacle of human depravity.


Moreover, given that our analysis above shows that this government does not care in the least about American soldiers, you can be sure that there is one reason and one reason only that they do not wish the world to see these images.  The absolute truth is that they fear their own prosecution.  In a just world, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, John Yoo, Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury, Alberto Gonzales, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, and George Bush would be summarily arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced for crimes against humanity.  However, this is not a just world.  Our President is the unjust Barrack Obama, a man who is more concerned about his future plans as President of the United States than he is about the rule of law, morality, ethics, or humanity.  Mr. Obama has become a accessory after the fact to the crime and a willing participant in its cover up.   Mr. Obama has joined the ranks of war criminals.

Sadly we live in a country whose history is much like this current scandal.  Our self image is a deception based on denial, cover ups, and delusion.  We cannot progress unless we look ourselves in the mirror, not for a quick glance, but for a long and painful self inspection.  They do not hate us because we are good.  They hate us because we are a selfish and evil people consumed with our own comfort and drowning in the fetid smell of our own decay.  We are a depraved, unproductive, and brutal empire on the brink of collapse.  They hate us because they should and if they knew the whole truth, they would hate us even more.