Promising freedom, democracy and prosperity, America brings widespread destruction and death, but it’s all good, for the war profiteers. Since each Uncle Sam misadventure is a bonanza for them, the more, the merrier. Bring it on!
On April 21st, 1975, I was still in Saigon. As the Vietnam War neared its end, there was much turmoil, obviously, and much fear. I had stopped going to school. With Da Lat overrun, my aunt and her family showed up at our house.
After an 11-day battle, Xuan Loc, just 44 miles from Saigon, had just fallen. On our black and white television, I watched President Nguyen Van Thieu say:
The Americans have asked us to do an impossible thing… You have asked us to do something you failed to do, with half a million powerful troops and skilled commanders, and with nearly $300 billion in expenditure over six long years.Less than a week later, I would be fleeing from Tan Son Nhat, on a C-130. Sitting on the floor, I wished I had a packet of instant noodles to munch on, uncooked, like some other kids.
If I do not say that you were defeated by the communists in Vietnam, I must modestly say that you did not win either. But you found an honorable way out. And at present, when our army lacks weapons, ammunition, helicopters, aircraft and B-52s (bombers), you ask us to do an impossible thing, like filling up the ocean with stones…
Likewise, you have let our soldiers die under the hail of shells. This is an inhumane act by an inhumane ally. Refusing to aid an ally and abandoning it is an inhumane act…
The United States is proud of being an invincible defender of the just cause and the ideal of freedom in the world… Are US statements worthy? Are US commitments still valid?
Just hours after it took off, the North Vietnamese would shell the airport, rendering it useless while killing many people exactly like me, just trying to escape.
Watching Afghans fleeing in panic in 2021, Americans can even laugh, however. Andrew Anglin, “Look at them running! Run, faggots, run!”
Anglin also calls them “sluts and other sinners.” This is very bad form, Andrew. If they’re faggots, sluts and sinners, then Uncle Sam was their pimp, john, rapist and bugger, which is accurate enough, but how can you blame foreigners for believing in Slick Sam’s sexy come-on, his glammy image and thumping pitch, when even Americans don’t know better?
Sidestepping human shit and collapsed grandpas on downtown sidewalks, they still think America is number one!
“SUPPORT OUR TROOPS” signs, banners and stickers adorn working class bars and storefronts across the USA. Even after so many self-defeating wars that bankrupt their nation while murdering millions of innocents, they continue to enlist.
With guns, will travel. No one else thinks like this. I wonder how many Americans can even identify ten countries on a map, or maybe just five?
In 2013, I met a woman in Cheyenne who said her daughter was stationed in North Korea. I bet most Americans don’t even know they’re paying to have at least 900 troops in Syria. Where is Syria?
With their own neighbors or relatives slaughtered, they can’t stop fighting for war profiteers or Jews, for it has become an American rite of passage. Even queers and trannies demand a piece of this Satanic action.
As for whom they must fight, they don’t even have a clue, or they’re too cowed to name their true enemies. There’s no true resistance or hope for America until the first meaningful assassination. Only galvanized by this can a pushback begin.
Through April of this year, this is the death toll of America’s fiasco in Afghanistan: 2,448 American soldiers, 3,846 American military contractors, 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police, 1,144 allied soldiers (mostly from NATO countries), 47,245 Afghan civilians, 51,191 Taliban and other opposition fighters, 444 aid workers and 72 journalists.
The 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police who died didn’t fight for America. They had no reason to. They did, however, get suckered into believing a Potemkin Afghanistan as Elmer glued together by a jivey Uncle Sam, with its freedom, democracy, rights for women and prosperity, etc.
If they were fools, then the 2,448 American soldiers who died were even dumber, for they lost their lives in a faraway land for nothing more than the bottom line of war profiteers. Though many undoubtedly thought they were exacting revenge for 9/11, Afghanistan had nothing to do with that inside job.
In Walter Reed, how many are thinking, I lost my limbs, eyes, nose, dick and half of my brain for what?
No wonder military vet suicide rate is so high. They knew they’d been had, with many figuring out, even way before they were discharged, that they didn’t serve their beloved country but helped to destroy its treasury, credibility and even soul.
After Pat Tillman realized what was going on, he got shot in the head by Uncle Sam. Not satisfied with shutting Tillman up for good, Sam milked his corpse for propaganda purposes. (Sam is expert at jerking cadavers and making them dance. JFK and Martin Luther King too.) American hero Pat Tillman was killed by the Taliban in battle, Sam claimed.
That’s the cynical and sinister fuck you’re dealing with, people, and Americans are no less dispensable than South Vietnamese or Afghans, etc.
To answer President Thieu’s questions. American statements are expedient lies, at best, and American commitments are made to be broken (and yes, even to Americans).
During the Vietnam War, Thieu constantly reminded us, “Don’t listen to what the Communist say. Look at what they do.”
To his grief and ours, Thieu discovered too late that Uncle Sam was as slick as the Commies when it came to mendacity and duplicity.
Sam can turn inside out, shed skin or flip flop with the best of them. After all, Joe Stalin was his best friend.
6 comments:
reposted on my reposting blog, as i always put things there i believe worthy of viewing by others and this essay just hits the necessary spots in identifying the crimes of the empire; www.patriotismbydegree.blogspot.com
Linh - Yes, war-mongering is a profitable and selective business. Call it mental illness or evil in any case - Joe "3 bucks for a shot of Beam & Pabst at Bob & Barbara's"
Funny how the Right (not to be confused with conservatives) laugh at the Left's (not to be confused with liberals) virtue signaling. But of course that is what "Thank you for your service!" exactly is. It's just promulgated by a different imperial component, but comes from the exact same source.
Everybody is responsible (not to say to blame). They all love it in one way or another. Find me one who cares about himself, and I'll show you one who cares about "others". That's because there are no others--we are all one.
Poignant and damning. I sent this to two friends who are victims of US instigated wars. Most people can't muster the attention that empathy would take. Too self concerned with their own petty trivialities to be conscious of what shocking devastation that our tax dollars bought. Bought and wrought.
Hi Linh,
Only four comments! Ok so it’s a new website. These are interesting times and I’m too loaded to say anything else.
Hi Patrick,
Comments to my articles are much more numerous at Unz Review. Some, though, are so stupid and crass, they stink up the whole comment stream.
Speaking of loaded, I'm quite delighted that South African beers are generally pretty good, and cheap! When I couldn't find Guinness at the store the other day, I bought some Castle Milk Stout, and they were fine.
Linh
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