America the exceptional failure

3 desperate ways the U.S. clings to the myth of American exceptionalism

The American empire has been reduced to dust. All that remains is the stale jingoism of our Republican candidates

By Tom EngelhardtExceptional Fact #1: Failure Is Success, or the U.S. Remains the Sole Superpower

If you were to isolate the single most striking, if little discussed, aspect of American foreign policy in the first 15 years of this century, it might be that Washington’s inability to apply its power successfully just about anywhere confirms that very power; in other words, failure is a marker of success. Let me explain.

In the post-9/11 years, American power in various highly militarized forms has been let loose repeatedly across a vast swath of the planet from the Chinese border to deep in Africa—and nowhere in those 14 years, despite dreams of glory and global dominion, has the U.S. succeeded in any of its strategic goals. That should qualify as exceptional in itself. After all, what are the odds that, in all that time, nothing should turn out as planned or positively by Washington’s standards? It could not win its war in Afghanistan; nor its two wars, one ongoing, in Iraq; nor has it had success in its present one in Syria; it failed to cow Iran; its intervention in Libya proved catastrophic; its various special ops and drone campaigns in Yemen have led to chaos in that country; and so, as novelist Kurt Vonnegut used to say, it goes.

Though there was much talk in the early years of this century of “nation building” abroad, American power has been able to build nothing. Its effect everywhere has been purely disintegrative (unless you count the creation of a terror “caliphate” in parts of collapsed Syria and Iraq as a non-disintegrative act). Under the pressure of American power, there have beenno victories, nor even in any traditional sense successes, while whole countries have collapsed, populations have been uprooted, and peoples put into flight by the millions. No matter how you measure it, American power has, in other words, been a tempest of failure.Comment:  For more on the subject, see America the Biggest Loser and "Restoring America's Greatness" = Disneyesque Dream.

#AmericanLivesMatter most to Americans

“All Lives Matter” has always been a lie: The brutality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki echoes in Ferguson and Iraq today

Americans have always valued their own lives above any other—except when their fellow Americans are the "other"

By Arthur ChuIt shouldn’t be rocket science why invoking “All Lives Matter” is, at best, insensitive and, at worst, an active attempt to derail activism and deny reality. Nobody is disagreeing that all people’s lives do, in fact, matter and ought to matter equally.

The point is that right now they are not treated as though they matter equally. Some people’s lives are treated as precious, others as disposable garbage. If you really do believe all lives matter, then your focus should be on black lives, which are demonstrably the most neglected lives in our country and, for that matter, the world. Treating a focus on black lives as a “special interest” or parochial concern requires willful ignorance about what kind of world we actually live in.

The charitable interpretation is that #AllLivesMatter folks just aren’t aware of this–they conceive of our justice and law enforcement system as a basically decent system that basically works the way it should where any instances of police brutality or unjust killings are unfortunate exceptions to the rule. They think of activists as just taking a few of those exceptions and singling them out because the victims “happen to be black.”

You can push back on this with statistical evidence—statistics that aren’t new or shocking to anyone, that have been known for years before putting names and faces to them like Mike Brown and Sandra Bland made them go viral. You can point to the obvious signs of a culture of racism, the ever-present context of a racist history in which these events occur. You can demonstrate that you’re not “picking and choosing” victims by signal-boosting just as loudly when a white teenager is killed, demonstrating that it’s not that you don’t care about white victims, but white victims are comparatively rarer.

You keep tweeting and keep marching and keep writing articles and books hoping that you will eventually “raise awareness” enough that the #AllLivesMatter crowd will stop their pointless derailing and actually act like all lives matter.

For some of them, this might work. But I’m coming to think that for many, it doesn’t–because they do not, in fact, believe that all lives matter, and consciously or unconsciously are excluding quite a lot of people from the “all” in that phrase.

Look at President Bush’s invasion of Iraq and President Obama’s withdrawal, both of which are being furiously relitigated at the moment in the run-up to the Republican primaries. Both pro-war and anti-war pundits talk endlessly about the 4,491 American deaths in that war, either arguing that withdrawal “saved more American lives” or caused those Americans who had died to have “died in vain.”

Going totally unmentioned are the more than 100,000 Iraqi deaths (we think, no one has been able to keep accurate count) in that war, the majority of whom were civilians, killed by violence in the war, and the untold more who died from disease or privation. This is a number at least 20 times as high as the number of Americans killed, possibly 40 times as high.

But we treat our people’s deaths as fundamentally more meaningful than theirs. Even the liberal anti-war crowd reflexively talks about “American troops” being killed and “the deaths of American citizens.” Whatever you think of the war, the American troops who died volunteered to go and made the choice to be there, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis–including Iraqi children–died with no choice in the matter at all.Comment:  For more on Iraq, see Phony "Patriots" Love American Sniper and Why Do They Hate Us 2013?

Phony "patriots" love American Sniper

Don't hate on critics of 'American Sniper'—criticize its flawed hero

By Matt RozsaFor far too many Americans, it is impossible to separate criticism of individuals within certain institution—or even systematic injustices perpetrated by those institutions—from the actual institutions themselves.

This was seen last year in the right-wing backlash against those who protested racial profiling among law enforcement. "If you read the liberal mainstream media," argued Ben Stein, you’d think "that the main problem with race in America was poor innocent black people being set upon and mistreated by the police." In his dismissal of the #BlackLivesMatter protests, Rudy Giuliani claimed that "they are tearing down respect for a criminal justice system that goes back to England in the 11th century." After a crazed cop-hater assassinated two police officers in December, New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch blamed it on those who "incited violence on the street under the guise of protest."

There is an obvious logical response to these attitudes. "You can truly grieve for every officer who’s been lost in the line of duty in this country, and still be troubled by cases of police overreach," argued Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. "Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards."And:Of course, the reason we are seeing such reflexive rallying behind American Sniper and Kyle’s character is that there are Americans who wish to turn him into such a symbol. "Treating Kyle as a patriot and ignoring any other possibility," observes Dennis Jett of the New Republic, "allows Americans to ignore the consequences of invading a country that had no weapons of mass destruction, had nothing to do with 9/11, and had no meaningful ties to Al Qaeda." Just as important, the canonization of Chris Kyle allows Americans to duck the morally thorny questions involving Kyle’s possible killing of innocent civilians, his dehumanization of both Muslims in general and Iraqis specifically, and his bloodthirsty attitude toward war itself. Because his supporters don’t wish to see these things (or, even worse, secretly condone them), they gloss over the inconvenient details and insist that drawing attention to them is un-American.

This speaks to an issue even larger than questions about the Iraq War, America’s military presence overseas, or even racism among law enforcement (to refer to the earlier analogy in this article). If America is going to have an intelligent public debate on any political issue, it is essential that its citizens be able to participate without fear of having their motives baselessly attacked. More specifically, if we are to hold our government accountable for its actions, we absolutely must be able to criticize its most powerful institutions—particularly those who use violence, be it the military abroad or the police at home—without being intimidated into silence.

It's not un-American to question Chris Kyle and the military operation he worked for. In fact, it might just be the most patriotic thing you can do.Comment:  For more on the subject, see American Sniper = Indian Killer.

American Sniper = Indian killer

Caution! 'American Sniper' Is a Dangerous Movie

By Mateo RomeroThis is a tense war movie that looks great. But just underneath the film’s sexy veneer is a shockingly racist ideology of hate and death that is advanced by the white male sniper Chris Kyle.

Kyle is the ideological descendant of Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. He belongs to an elite white male cadre of swinging dick meat eaters who will solve the problems of invaded brown people with a bullet. Iraqi and Syrian combatants are called “fuckin’ savages.” Direct statements of racism and death may or may not reflect the realities of the modern U.S. military. But they do give rise to false dichotomies that dehumanize the enemy and make it kinda fun, cool and necessary to kill them.

For the moment, Sniper is the fave mascot of the reactionary right wing of white America. Its visual beauty softens the harsh fact that the movie glorifies death, racism, hatred, religious prejudice, sexism, colonialism and moral corrosion. It presents some great ideas about caring for and protecting the people of your tribe. If you’re a white Christian American, that is. Women, minorities, kids, Muslims need not apply. They’re part of the bullet-to-the-head fix.

Why is this film so important in its depiction of outdated and corrosive white conservative male values? Because it is a time of great change and social movement in the world. The time of white American male rule and hegemony is coming to an end. And American wingnuts don’t like it one bit.Some of the problems in Kyle's book--from Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature blog:

"Injun" in Chris Kyle's AMERICAN SNIPERWhen American Sniper opened in theaters last week, I started to see reviews that pointed out Kyle's use of the word savage to describe Iraqis. That word has been used to describe American Indians. I wondered if Kyle made any connections between "savage" and American Indians in his book. The answer? Yes.

In his autobiography, Kyle uses "Injun" in two places. Here's what he said on page 267:Or we would bump out 500 yards, six or eight hundred yards, going deep into Injun territory to look and wait for the bad guys.And here's what he said on page 291:Our missions would last for an overnight or two in Injun country.See? He made connections between "savage" Iraqis and "savage" Indians.Kyle's attitude = American imperialism

Many people have written about the problems in American Sniper. Here's the main one:

“American Sniper’s” biggest lie: Clint Eastwood has a delusional Fox News problem

The insanities and fantasies at the heart of "American Sniper" explain everything about the state of the 2015 GOP

By Sophia A. McClennenLet’s start with the delusion. The film draws a direct link between the events of 9/11 and the war in Iraq, forgetting completely that the war in Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Not one of the attackers that day was in any way connected to Iraq. Thus to connect 9/11 to Iraq is delusional. Not even the Bush administration made that overt a link—at the time they claimed they went to Iraq to keep the Iraqis from using weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

But that’s not the perceptions of many who watch Fox News. As the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland reported back in 2003: “Those who receive most of their news from Fox News are more likely than average to have misperceptions.” In their poll they found that 80 percent of Fox viewers held at least one of three Iraq-related misperceptions, more than any other news consumers, especially those that consume NPR and PBS.

The point is that the 9/11-Iraq link is delusional, but it is also a common link in public perceptions of those on the right who watch Fox News and clearly it is one that makes sense to Eastwood and those that think like him.

The second problem is the culture of violence. While the film tries to show Kyle wrestling at some level with some of his kills, he still very clearly divides the world into categories. As his father puts it in the film, there are wolves (those that want to kill you), sheep and sheep dogs (who have to protect the sheep from the wolves). Not only are there just three categories of life, but these categories are also defined solely by a logic of violence and aggression. In the film, Iraqis are almost all depicted as wolves, even women and children. Kyle’s first two kills are a young boy and his mother. But they posed a threat and thus needed to be killed. As Kyle later explains, he has no remorse over any of his kills, just over the lives he wished he could have protected.

At no point does the film consider the fact that the war was based on false justifications. At no point does it imagine that those in Iraq might have seen the U.S. soldiers as invaders in their homeland. At no point does it imagine that the violence suffered by our own soldiers could have been avoided if we simply hadn’t started the war to begin with. The logic of war is completely unquestioned, making this the most simplistic war film we have seen nominated for an Oscar in decades.

George Zimmerman is Native?!

A commenter on Zimmerman Acquitted of Trayvon's Murder claims George Zimmerman is Native. Wow, really? Let's take a look:And Anon, it turns out that GZ is Native American and Black as well.

The racist narrative of the Left on this issue keeps running aground on the rocks of facts like this.

The left, including the writers here, are bashing Zimmerman because he is white. Never mind that they are incorrect, they are still racist for doing so.The article I posted explains how a person can be white and Hispanic. Read the key points again:The truth is, Zimmerman is both: white and Hispanic, one a racial category and the other a marker of ethnicity. ... Both are social constructions, but the former relies on skin color and ostensibly biological features, while the latter is a designation based on country of origin.This is consistent with the US Census and most polls, in which "of Hispanic descent" is an additional choice besides "white" or "black," not an alternative to them.

Your ignorance of this common classification scheme, despite the explanation in front of your face, is your problem, not mine. And obviously you can't address it with anything other than your opinion or you'd have done so already.

"Peruvian" = Native?!

So what if Zimmerman has a Peruvian mother and an "Afro-Peruvian" grandfather? Peruvians come in all races just like Americans. The grandfather could've been pure white on his Peruvian side. Unless you can identify a tribe or tribes Zimmerman is descended from, your speculation that he's "Native" is worthless.

And what if this Afro-Peruvian grandfather were half black and half Native? That would make Zimmerman 1/8 Native at most. And that's what you're calling Native?!

I'm doubly surprised that you'd think I'd think a white man with a small amount of black or Native blood is anything but white. If you've foolishly forgotten all my postings on Johnny Depp, Taylor Lautner, et al., read 'em again. A person whose DNA is mostly white is white.

The main exception is when an Indian tribe chooses to enroll people who are mostly white by DNA. Was Zimmerman's great-grandparent, grandfather, or mother an acknowledged member of a Peruvian tribe? If not, you're wasting our time.And Rob, in all fairness, I can find some similarity in your inconsistent arguments. You have erroneously characterized the US legally fighting back against a major terrorist kingpin in Iraq as "killing brown people". Here, you call George Zimmerman white.There's no inconsistency here, just your ignorance of what constitutes race and ethnicity. Hispanics with mostly Native heritage are brown. Hispanics with mostly European heritage are white.

Conservatives ignore dead Iraqis

As for Iraq, don't be a dumbass. Saddam Hussein didn't attack the United States and we invaded under false pretenses--to find the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. More to the point, we killed hundreds of thousands of "brown people" while killing a "major terrorist kingpin." My characterization on that point is accurate and well-documented.Rob personally makes the error on Zimmerman: "Conservatives are predictably glad that a white man got away with killing a black boy"Your lack of concern for the innocent Muslims we've killed is sickening--but typical for conservatives who don't care about dead brown people. Ann Coulter was the first to say "Hallelujah" over Zimmerman's getting away with murder. You can read more about your racist conservative friends here:

Tea Parties Use Verdict to Further Attack Trayvon, Reproduce RacismDespite the fact that Trayvon Martin was guilty only of “walking while black,” some Tea Party leaders had already convicted 17 year-old well before the trial, rather than George Zimmerman who shot him.Joe Scarborough: Sean Hannity Using Trayvon Martin's Death 'To Gin Up His Ratings' (VIDEO)"Whatever excuse there is to say this young black man had it coming to him, that is the defense because there is no defense for shooting down a young black man in a middle class neighborhood with Skittles."Conservatives deny America's racismAnd he makes other errors too: I have talked to many conservatives about this, and not one of them cared about the race of those involved.Nope, that's your error too. Specifically, your ignorance of the concept of white privilege. White privilege lets you ignore the race in cases like this, or pretend to ignore it.

But the racism embedded in many Americans is extremely well-documented. And I've documented it many times in this blog. Yet apparently you're too dumb and white to understand what you're reading. Or too conservative and anti-science to understand how research works.And Rob, in all fairness, I can find some similarity in your inconsistent arguments. You have erroneously characterized the US legally fighting back against a major terrorist kingpin in Iraq as "killing brown people". Here, you call George Zimmerman white.

Compare the picture you chose for this post, here, of Zimmerman, to any typical picture of Saddam Hussein.

Zimmerman looks less "white" than Saddam Hussein. Yet you call him white, and call the terrorist brown.Okay, I'll take that challenge:











Zimmerman looks less "white"?! Check your eyes, buddy. As with every other point here, you lose on that point too.

"Brown" defined for dummies

Besides, brown is a label for a whole group of people. It refers to an average person in the group, not an outlier. In other words, an exception doesn't disprove the rule.

Try comparing the people I call brown to the people I call white in general and you'll see I'm right. I.e., you'll see you're stupid for wasting my time with this trivial point.

Here's a related news flash for you: Blacks have skin colors ranging from dark gray to light tan. They aren't literally black. Duhhh.And it seems odd that Zimmerman is whitewashed to the point that his 1/4 Native ancestry is whitewashed to the point that isn't mentioned on your blog about Native issues.The only odd thing here is your ignorance of my years of blogging on what makes someone an Indian. Again, it's not a small fraction of Native blood.

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for a shred of evidence about your claim. "Afro-Peruvian" could be 50% black, 50% white, and 0% Native by blood. Claiming that "Afro-Peruvian" means "1/4 Native ancestry" is an excellent example of the wishful thinking you mentioned. It deserves the scorn I've given it.

In short, better luck next time, friend. Try using facts rather than unsubstantiated opinions and speculation. Then I won't have to kick your conservative butt all over the map again.

For more on Trayvon Martin, see Racist Responses to Zimmerman Verdict and America's Dual Justice System.

"Why do they hate us?" 2013

The same motive for anti-US 'terrorism' is cited over and over

Ignoring the role played by US actions is dangerously self-flattering and self-delusional

By Glenn Greenwald"The two suspects in the Boston bombing that killed three and injured more than 260 were motivated by the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, officials told the Washington Post.

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 'the 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack,' the Post writes, citing 'US officials familiar with the interviews.'"

In the last several years, there have been four other serious attempted or successful attacks on US soil by Muslims, and in every case, they emphatically all say the same thing: that they were motivated by the continuous, horrific violence brought by the US and its allies to the Muslim world - violence which routinely kills and oppresses innocent men, women and children:

"I had an agreement with at least one person to attack the United States in retaliation for US support of Israel and in retaliation of the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Palestine, especially in the blockade of Gaza, and in retaliation for the killing of innocent and civilian Muslim populations in Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and beyond, most of them women, children, and noncombatants."

"If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, 'we will be attacking US', adding that Americans 'only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die' . . . .

"As soon as he was taken into custody May 3 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, onboard a flight to Dubai, the Pakistani-born Shahzad told agents that he was motivated by opposition to US policy in the Muslim world, officials said."

When he was asked by the federal judge presiding over his case how he could possibly have been willing to detonate bombs that would kill innocent children, he replied:

"Well, the drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody. It's a war, and in war, they kill people. They're killing all Muslims. . . .

"I am part of the answer to the US terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people. And, on behalf of that, I'm avenging the attack. Living in the United States, Americans only care about their own people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die."And:It should go without saying that the issue here is causation, not justification or even fault. It is inherently unjustifiable to target innocent civilians with violence, no matter the cause (just as it is unjustifiable to recklessly kill civilians with violence). But it is nonetheless vital to understand why there are so many people who want to attack the US as opposed to, say, Peru, or South Africa, or Brazil, or Mexico, or Japan, or Portugal. It's vital for two separate reasons.

First, some leading American opinion-makers love to delude themselves and mislead others into believing that the US is attacked despite the fact that it is peaceful, peace-loving, freedom-giving and innocent. As these myth-makers would have it, we don't bother anyone; we just mind our own business (except when we're helping and liberating everyone), so why would anyone possibly want to attack us?

With that deceitful premise in place, so many Americans, westerners, Christians and Jews love to run around insisting that the only real cause for Muslim attacks on the US is that the attackers have this primitive, brutal, savage, uncivilized religion (Islam) that makes them do it. Yesterday, Andrew Sullivan favorably cited Sam Harris as saying that "Islamic doctrines ... still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society" and then himself added: "All religions contain elements of this kind of fanaticism. But Islam's fanatical side–from the Taliban to the Tsarnaevs–is more murderous than most."

These same people often love to accuse Muslims of being tribal without realizing the irony that what they are saying-Our Side is Superior and They are Inferior-is the ultimate expression of rank tribalism. They also don't seem ever to acknowledge the irony of Americans and westerners of all people accusing others of being uniquely prone to violence, militarism and aggression (Juan Cole yesterday, using indisputable statistics, utterly destroyed the claim that Muslims are uniquely violent, including by noting the massive body count piled up by predominantly Christian nations and the fact that "murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States").

As the attackers themselves make as clear as they can, it's not religious fanaticism but rather political grievance that motivates these attacks. Religious conviction may make them more willing to fight (as it does for many in the west), but the motive is anger over what is being done by the US and its allies to Muslims. Those who claim otherwise are essentially saying: gosh, these Muslims sure do have this strange, primitive, inscrutable religion whereby they seem to get angry when they're invaded, occupied, bombed, killed, and have dictators externally imposed on them. It's vital to understand this causal relationship simply in order to prevent patent, tribalistic, self-glorifying falsehoods from taking hold.

Second, it's crucial to understand this causation because it's often asked "what can we do to stop Terrorism?" The answer is right in front of our faces: we could stop embracing the polices in that part of the world which fuel anti-American hatred and trigger the desire for vengeance and return violence. Yesterday at a Senate hearing on drones, a young Yemeni citizen whose village was bombed by US drones last week (despite the fact that the targets could easily have been arrested), Farea Al-Muslimi, testified. Al-Muslimi has always been pro-American in the extreme, having spent a year in the US due to a State Department award, but he was brilliant in explaining these key points:

"Just six days ago, my village was struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor farmers. The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic bombings in Boston last week tore your hearts and also mine.

"What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village one drone strike accomplished in an instant: there is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America."Terrorism: Are American Citizens Retaliation Victims of the Bush-Obama Immoral Wars?

By Jacqueline MarcusI realize that the media refuses to discuss the motives of political acts of terrorism. But we need to have that discussion after ten years of killing and torturing Iraqis and Afghans. The Bush-Cheney administration lied to Americans and cruelly blamed Iraqis for 9-11. The truth is that Iraqis were a kind and generous people before 9-11, they sympathized with Americans when 9-11 happened; they had nothing to do with 9-11, and did nothing to harm us. And that’s true for Afghans as well. These war crimes are now all documented and have been revealed through the work and courageous efforts of independent journalists like Jeremy Scahill and Julian Assange via WikiLeaks. Independent journals such as Truthout.org have continued to cover these stories—so that the public can distinguish between facts on the ground and corporate media lies-propaganda.

There is a simple solution to diminishing violent acts of terrorism that this government refuses to acknowledge: Leave these poor people alone! Stop invading them, stop killing them! Send drones that drop boxes of food, bread not bombs, so that the healing can begin. Of course, by now, they probably don’t trust anything that comes from the U.S. government, including food and water—they’ll assume it will all be poisoned. Can you blame them?Comment:  Attacking us because of their "primitive, brutal, savage, uncivilized" beliefs and practices is exactly what we blamed Indians for. And it's true that Indians sometimes terrorized and murdered "innocent" settlers who had "done nothing" to them.

I put those words in quotes because the settlers were the vanguard of genocidal policies that intended to push the Indians into the desert or the ocean. And the Indians knew it.

The Indians were fighting for their way of life, their very existence. They couldn't strike at the generals in their forts or the politicians in the statehouses. So they struck at the frontline purveyors of these genocidal policies.

The point is that almost no one wages "terrorism" because they're mad or evil. They're human beings just like everyone else. And they have motives and goals just like everyone else.

It may be foolish to try to stop an onslaught by killing civilians. It probably does nothing but inflame your opponents against you. That's why Jesus, Gandhi, and King preached nonviolence--and succeeded with it.

But people do foolish, desperate, even horrible things when their backs are to the wall. The Indians tried the peaceful way; they signed 400 treaties. The white man broke every treaty, interred the Indians in concentration camps (reservations) and boarding schools, and watched them die slowly of disease and hunger.

With that in mind, I can understand why the Indians resorted to the occasional massacre. When you're fighting for your people in self-defense, the unthinkable becomes thinkable.

For more on the subject, see "Why Do They Hate Us?" 2012 and Why Don't "They" Like Us?

Overreactions to Boston bombing

Why does America lose its head over 'terror' but ignore its daily gun deaths?

The marathon bombs triggered a reaction that is at odds with last week's inertia over arms control

By Michael CohenLondoners, who endured IRA terror for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston. They're right–and then some. What we saw was a collective freak-out like few that we've seen previously in the United States. It was yet another depressing reminder that more than 11 years after 9/11 Americans still allow themselves to be easily and willingly cowed by the "threat" of terrorism.

After all, it's not as if this is the first time that homicidal killers have been on the loose in a major American city. In 2002, Washington DC was terrorised by two roving snipers, who randomly shot and killed 10 people. In February, a disgruntled police officer, Christopher Dorner, murdered four people over several days in Los Angeles. In neither case was LA or DC put on lockdown mode, perhaps because neither of these sprees was branded with that magically evocative and seemingly terrifying word for Americans, terrorism.

To be sure, public officials in Boston appeared to be acting out of an abundance of caution. And it's appropriate for Boston residents to be asked to take precautions or keep their eyes open. But by letting one fugitive terrorist shut down a major American city, Boston not only bowed to outsize and irrational fears, but sent a dangerous message to every would-be terrorist–if you want to wreak havoc in the United States, intimidate its population and disrupt public order, here's your instruction booklet.

Putting aside the economic and psychological cost, the lockdown also prevented an early capture of the alleged bomber, who was discovered after Bostonians were given the all clear and a Watertown man wandered into his backyard for a cigarette and found a bleeding terrorist on his boat.

In some regards, there is a positive spin on this–it's a reflection of how little Americans have to worry about terrorism. A population such as London during the IRA bombings or Israel during the second intifada or Baghdad, pretty much every day, becomes inured to random political violence. Americans who have such little experience of terrorism, relatively speaking, are more primed to overreact–and assume the absolute worst when it comes to the threat of a terror attack. It is as if somehow in the American imagination, every terrorist is a not just a mortal threat, but is a deadly combination of Jason Bourne and James Bond.

If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There's something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of "law-abiding Americans."

So for those of you keeping score at home–locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).

How Boston exposes America’s dark post-9/11 bargain

Why did this story drive the whole country nuts? Because we traded rights for "security," and didn't get either

By Andrew O'HehirI think the real reason why this gruesome but small-scale attack sent the whole country into such an incoherent panic lies a little deeper than that. As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, by the way, I’m aware that the trauma felt by people in and around Boston, whether or not they were directly affected, is real and likely to last quite a while. What I’m talking about is the media spectacle of fear and unreason delivered via TV, news sites and social media, the nationwide hysteria that made a vicious act apparently perpetrated by two losers with backpack bombs seem like an “existential threat” (to borrow a little bogus “Homeland”-speak) to the most powerful nation in the world.

Because it was, in a way. In America after 9/11, we made a deal with the devil, or with Dick Cheney, which is much the same thing. We agreed to give up most of our enumerated rights and civil liberties (except for the sacrosanct Second Amendment, of course) in exchange for a lot of hyper-patriotic tough talk, the promise of “security” and the freedom to go on sitting on our asses and consuming whatever the hell we wanted to. Don’t look the other way and tell me that you signed a petition or voted for John Kerry or whatever. The fact is that whatever dignified private opinions you and I may hold, we did not do enough to stop it, and our constitutional rights are now deemed to be partial or provisional rather than absolute, do not necessarily apply to everyone, and can be revoked by the government at any time.

The supposed tradeoff for that sacrifice was that we would be protected, at least for a while, from the political violence and terrorism and low-level warfare that is nearly an everyday occurrence in many parts of the world. According to the Afghan government, for example, a NATO air attack on April 6 killed 17 civilians in Kunar province, 12 of them children. We’ve heard almost nothing about that on this side of the world, partly because the United States military has not yet admitted that it even happened. But it’s not entirely fair to suggest that Americans think one kid killed by a bomb in Boston is worth more than 12 kids killed in Afghanistan. It’s more that we live in a profoundly asymmetrical world, and the dead child in Boston is surprising in a way any number of dead children in Afghanistan, horrifyingly enough, are not. He lived in a protected zone, after all, a place that was supposed to be sealed off from history, isolated from the blood and turmoil of the world. But of course that was a lie.

We are supposed to be protected, and then something like Boston comes along, a small-minded and bloody attack that appears to have been conducted by a couple of guys flying under the radar of law enforcement or national intelligence, pursuing some obscure agenda we will probably never understand. (We have recently learned that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his family were interviewed by the FBI in 2011, apparently at the request of Russian intelligence, and agents found “no derogatory information.” Is that the right’s new Benghazi I smell?) Not only does it conjure up all the leftover post-traumatic jitters from 9/11–which for many of us will be there for the rest of our lives–it also makes clear that our Faustian bargain was completely bogus, and the devil never intended to hold up his end of the deal. We surrendered our rights to a government of war criminals, who promised us certainty and security in a world that offers none. We should have known better, and in fact we did. At the literal birth moment of American democracy, Benjamin Franklin summed it up in a single sentence: “Those who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”Comment:  I don't agree with O'Hehir that "it’s not entirely fair to suggest that Americans think one kid killed by a bomb in Boston is worth more than 12 kids killed in Afghanistan." I'd say that's totally fair.

The idea that we're supposed to be safe is a corollary of the idea that we're God's chosen people--destined to bring enlightenment and civilization to the world. Which is another way of saying we (white Euro-Christians) are superior to the world's brown-skinned heathen masses.

Which takes back to one dead American is worth a thousand dead Muslims. As the image below explains.

Americans are making this calculation whether they realize it or not. If asked, many people would state it openly, with claims like, "They're not the same as us. They don't value life as much."

For more on Manifest Destiny, see "Chosen People" = Conquerors and Killers and Obama vs. Romney on Manifest Destiny.

First powwow in combat zone

Photos: Remembering the First Known Pow Wow Held in a U.S. Combat Zone by Native AmericansIn 2004, U.S. Army Sergeant Debra Mooney, Choctaw, and the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion staged the first pow wow held in a U.S. combat zone by Native Americans. The Native American Inter-Tribal Pow Wow was held in Al Taqaddum, Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

According to the National Museum of the American Indian, the two-day event, held at the Al Taqaddum Air Base near Fallujah, featured Native regalia, dancing and singing, and traditional games and foods, including genuine frybread. Participants made their pow wow drum from a discarded 55-gallon oil barrel and canvas from a cot. The goal of the pow wow was to bring a piece of home to Native Americans serving in Iraq while sharing their cultural heritage with fellow soldiers, marines, and sailors.Comment:  For more on Indians and Iraq, see Reconstructing Iraq and Indians Failed and Indians in Taking Chance.

Below:  "Drum circle during the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion pow wow at Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq, 2004. Photo by Master Sergeant Chuck Boers (Lipan Apache/Oklahoma Cherokee, b. 1964). Gift of Sergeant Debra K. Mooney and members of the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion."

Reconstructing Iraq and Indians failed

Why American reconstruction fails

Our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have caused more harm than good, and we have only ourselves to blame

By Peter Van BurenBy 2010, when I wrote “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People,” the possibility that some level of success might be close by still occupied some official minds. American boots remained on the ground in Mesopotamia and looked likely to stay on for years in at least a few of the massive permanent bases we had built there. A sort-of elected government was more or less in place, and in the press interviews I did in response to my book I was regularly required to defend its thesis that reconstruction in Iraq had failed almost totally, and that the same process was going down in Afghanistan as well. It was sometimes a tough sell. After all, how could we truly fail, being plucky Americans, historically equipped like no one else with plenty of bootstraps and know-how and gumption.

Now, it’s definitive. Reconstruction in Iraq has failed. Dismally. The U.S. couldn’t even restore the country’s electric system or give a majority of its people potable water. The accounts of that failure still pour out. Choose your favorites; here are just two recent ones of mine: a report that a $200 million year-long State Department police training program had shown no results (none, nada), in part because the Iraqis had been completely uninterested in it; and a long official list of major reconstruction projects uncompleted, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, all carefully catalogued by the now-defunct Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction.

Failure, in fact, was the name of the game when it came to the American mission. Just tote up the score: the Iraqi government is moving ever closer to Iran; the U.S. occupation, which built 505 bases in the country with the thought that U.S. troops might remain garrisoned there for generations, ended without a single base in U.S. hands (none, nada); no gushers of cheap oil leapt USA-wards nor did profits from the above leap into the coffers of American oil companies; and there was a net loss of U.S. prestige and influence across the region. And that would just be the beginning of the list from hell.Van Buren continues with the question, "Why reconstruction at all?":While, dollar-for-dollar, corruption and contractor greed account for almost all the money wasted, the idea that, deep down, we want the people we conquer to become mini-versions of us accounts for the rest of the drive and motivation. We want them to consume things as a lifestyle, use nice sewer systems, and send everyone to schools where, thanks to the new textbooks we’ve sponsored, they’ll learn more about…us. This explains why we funded pastry-making classes to try to turn Iraqi women into small business owners, why an obsession with holding mediagenic elections in Iraq smothered nascent grassroots democracy (remember all those images of purple fingers?), why displacing family farms by introducing large-scale agribusiness seemed so important, and so forth.

By becoming versions of us, the people we conquer would, in our eyes, redeem themselves from being our enemies. Like a perverse view of rape, reconstruction, if it ever worked, would almost make it appear that they wanted to be violated by the American military so as to benefit from being rebuilt in the American fashion. From Washington’s point of view, there’s really no question here, no why at all. Who, after all, wouldn’t want to be us? And that, in turn, justifies everything. Think of it as an up-to-date take on that classic line from Vietnam, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

Americans have always worn their imperialism uncomfortably, even when pursuing it robustly. The British were happy to carve out little green enclaves of home, and to tame—brutally, if necessary—the people they conquered. The United States is different, maybe because of the lip service politicians need to pay to our founding ideals of democracy and free choice.

We’re not content merely to tame people; we want to change them, too, and make them want it as well. Fundamentalist Muslims will send their girls to school, a society dominated by religion will embrace consumerism, and age-old tribal leaders will give way to (U.S.-friendly, media-savvy) politicians, even while we grow our archipelago of military bases and our corporations make out like bandits. It’s our way of reconciling Freedom and Empire, the American Way. Only problem: it doesn’t work. Not for a second. Not at all. Nothing. Nada.Why does remaking foreigners into Americans inevitably fail?Once it becomes clear that reconstruction is for us, not them, its purpose to enrich our contractors, fuel our bureaucrats’ vanity, and most importantly, justify our imperial actions, why it fails becomes a no-brainer. It has to fail (not that we really care). They don’t want to be us. They have been them for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. They may welcome medicines that will save their children’s lives, but hate the culture that the U.S. slipstreams in like an inoculation with them.

Failure in the strict sense of the word is not necessarily a problem for Washington. Our purpose is served by the appearance of reconstructing. We need to tell ourselves we tried, and those (dark, dirty, uneducated, Muslim, terrorist, heathen) people we just ran over with a tank actually screwed this up. And OK, sure, if a few well-connected contractors profit along the way, more power to them.Comment:  It's uncanny how closely this situation parallels that of the American Indian after the Indian Wars. The following is almost exactly how US officials thought at the end of the 19th century:

Heathen Indians will send their children to school, a society dominated by religion will embrace consumerism, and age-old tribal leaders will give way to (U.S.-friendly, media-savvy) politicians, even while we grow our archipelago of military bases and our corporations (railroads, mines, and ranches) make out like bandits.

Alas, some things never change. American imperialism seems to be one of them.

For more on the subject, see Indians Say "Unoccupy America" and US Policy = Seeking Terror-tory.

Below:  Two conquerors who invaded foreign territory to remake the inhabitants in their image.

Indians in Taking Chance

Watched this movie recently:

Taking Chance (2009)The made-for-HBO Taking Chance is based on perhaps the single most moving artifact to come out of the Second Gulf War, Lt. Col. Mike Strobl's first-person narrative of his voluntary mission escorting the body of a fellow Marine killed in Iraq. Strobl (played in the film by Kevin Bacon) hadn't known Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps but, noticing they'd been born in the same western town, he requested temporary leave from his duties as a manpower-deployment analyst at Quantico in order to accompany the 20-year-old's body home. Home, as it turned out, was no longer their shared birthplace in Colorado but the high-country Wyoming town of Dubois. The journey would take Strobl deep into the heart of his nation, and his own heart as well. There's no overstating the power and beauty of what he encountered: one instance after another of not just military personnel but airline employees, passengers, and bystanders doing honor--mostly wordlessly--to Chance's coffin and his escort as they passed by. First-time director Ross Katz deserves credit for declining to inflate any of these moments or underscore their meaning with grandiloquent speechifying, and Bacon--an actor who couldn't hit a false note if his life depended on it--is true to the Desert Storm veteran's self-discipline and emotional discretion. The picture's decency is unimpeachable, and Strobl's story, transcending pro-war and anti-war politics, is itself an act of healing. --Richard T. JamesonComment:  When the body arrives in Wyoming, the locals hold the funeral in an auditorium. Among the mourners are a group of 4-5 Indians, including Carla-Rae (formerly Carla-Rae Holland):Carla-Rae Beshaw (pronounced Bee Shaw), is a SAG, AFTRA and AEA, actress. Born in upstate New York Carla-Rae is of Seneca/Mohawk French Canadian heritage.A later scene shows a group of orange-clad Korean or Vietnam War veterans who may be Latinos.

It's not a big deal, but in a Western location, you should see a sprinkling of Indians and Latinos at a military event. It's good to see someone putting a little thought into representing the setting accurately. Even if these characters are on screen only for a couple of seconds, it's a nice touch that people (like me) will notice.

As for Taking Chance, it definitely doesn't take sides in Bush's controversial war on Iraq. I think that weakens the film a little; you can't help thinking Chance was foolish to enlist in a war against the wrong enemies. But it's a fine film that deserves the awards it won. Rob's rating: 8.5 of 10.

For more on the subject, see The Best Indian Movies.

NAMA endorses military book

N.A.M.A. Endorses New Military BookIt has often been noted that American Indians/Alaska Natives have served in the United States military more per capita than any other ethnic group. So it’s no wonder an organization like the Native American Music Awards & Association would endorse a military project.

In a recent announcement N.A.M.A. is collaborating with Operation Music Aid Inc., involving recently published Two Scoops of Hooah!: The T-Walls of Kuwait and Iraq. The 208-page hardcover book, serves as a pictorial spread of history, focusing on cement structures, T-walls, that originally were military barriers. Now transformed into artistic murals showing the expressions of the American Service Members and Coalition Partner Nations on the battlefields of Kuwait and Iraq.Comment:  For more on military books, see Navajo Codetalker Writes Memoir and Photographing America's First Warriors.

Fischer's passion for killing

Here's some background on Bryan Fischer, the neo-Nazi pundit for the American Family Association:

A Christian Warmonger on Steroids

By Laurence M. VanceFischer maintains that "we have feminized the Medal of Honor." This is a "disturbing trend" that he has noticed, but "which few others seem to have recognized." He laments that "every Medal of Honor awarded during these two conflicts has been awarded for saving life." He is upset that "not one has been awarded for inflicting casualties on the enemy." Fischer wants U.S. soldiers to do one thing--kill:

So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?

I would suggest our culture has become so feminized that we have become squeamish at the thought of the valor that is expressed in killing enemy soldiers through acts of bravery.

We rightly honor those who give up their lives to save their comrades. It’s about time we started also honoring those who kill bad guys.
The reaction to Fischer’s column was fierce. The comments posted were overwhelmingly negative.Fischer wrote a second column defending the first column. Vance continues:I guess Fischer’s ideal candidate for the Medal of Honor would be Lt. William Calley or a worker on the Manhattan Project.

After trying to justify his unholy desire with Scripture, which arguments I will examine in due course, Fischer closes his second column thusly:

War is certainly a terrible thing, and should only be waged for the highest and most just of causes. But if the cause is just, then there is great honor in achieving military success, success which should be celebrated and rewarded.

The bottom line here is that the God of the Bible clearly honors those who show valor and gallantry in waging aggressive war in a just cause against the enemies of freedom, even while inflicting massive casualties in the process. What I’m saying is that it’s time we started imitating God’s example again.
There are two issues here that need to be addressed. One, Fischer’s support for U.S. soldiers killing in Iraq and Afghanistan. And two, Fischer’s attempt to justify, with Scripture, his passion for killing.Comment:  Fischer's ideal candidate for the medal probably would be Custer (Washita massacre) or Chivington (Sand Creek massacre). I'm sure he'd agree that our Indian wars were as "just" as any other American war.

This article obviously sheds light on Fischer's column arguing for the slaughter of savage Indians. Summing up his position, if white Christian Americans kill people, it's good by definition.

For more on the subject, see Critics Slam Fischer's Racism and Fischer:  Natives Had No Morals.

Below:  Dead Iraqi child or future terrorist? Does it matter? Either way, Fischer cheers for the Americans who killed him.

Teabaggers are mad...now

Were You Mad When...?After the 8 Years of the Bush/Cheney Disaster, Now You Get Mad?

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.

You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy and push us to invade Iraq.

You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.

You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.

You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us. You didn't get mad when we spent over 800 billion (and counting) on said illegal war.

You didn't get mad when Bush borrowed more money from foreign sources than the previous 42 presidents combined.

You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars in cash just disappeared in Iraq.

You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.

You didn't get mad when Bush embraced trade and outsourcing policies that shipped 6 million American jobs out of the country.

You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.

You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.

You didn't get mad when Bush rang up 10 trillion dollars in combined budget and current account deficits.

You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.

You didn't get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.

You didn't get mad when we gave people who had more money than they could spend, the filthy rich, over a trillion dollars in tax breaks. You didn't get mad with the worst 8 years of job creations in several decades.

You didn't get mad when over 200,000 US citizens lost their lives because they had no health insurance.

You didn't get mad when lack of oversight and regulations from the Bush Administration caused US citizens to lose 12 trillion dollars in investments, retirement, and home values.

No...you finally got mad

When a black man was elected President and decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.

Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, job losses by the millions, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, and the worst economic disaster since 1929 are all okay with you, but helping fellow Americans who are sick...Oh, Hell No!!Comment:  This posting sums up the hypocrisy of Tea Party supporters nicely.

For more on the subject, see Teabaggers = Constitutional Hypocrites and Tea Party Guide to American History.

America's First Warriors in Iraq

Native American Warriors In Iraq

By Sarah HandelPhotojournalist Steven Clevenger got his start in 1971 in Cambodia, when he was just 22-years-old. He has covered seven wars, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2006, Clevenger began a three-year project documenting the warrior tradition of soldiers serving in Iraq. His work resulted in his book, America's First Warriors: Native Americans and Iraq.

As an Osage and a war photographer, he was fascinated by modern Native American warrior culture. The definition of warrior, he writes, has been basically the same since pre-Columbian times: "A warrior is the protector of his people." The same values inherent in that code—loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage—are elements necessary for a successful U.S. Military career.

Clevenger spent time embedded with Native American military members in Iraq in both 2007 and 2009. He took photographs and interviewed Apache, Navajo, Osage, Pueblo and other Native military members, capturing how their culture affected and informed their wartime service.Comment:  Clevenger gives us a positive definition of "warrior." A negative definition would include the actual behavior of "warriors" such as athletes and soldiers. This behavior often involves violence, brutality, and savagery.

For more on the subject, see Weaponized Drone = Indian Savage, Alexie on Warriors, and Indians Join Military for Paycheck? For more on the subject in general, see Indians in the Military.