The 'co$t of doing bu$ine$$'
There is a disturbing "argument" circulating regarding the United States' inevitable "victory" over Iraq. That "argument" goes something like this:
Even though the "coalition forces" slaughtered an untold number of Iraqis, God knows how many Iraqis would have died had the murderous Saddam Hussein not been forcibly removed from power. Therefore, not only is the United States morally justified in its unprovoked, illegal and imperialist attack upon Iraq, but its inevitable "victory" is actually cause for celebration.
Yup, sickeningly, even salon.com's Gary Kamiya wrote in an awful piece that appeared today that we should "celebrate." The other day I heard a Sacramento radio personality (most radio personalities are missing the same chromosome, I hypothesize, or perhaps they have the same extra chromosome) casually remark that the Iraqi casualties are the "cost of doing business."
It's easy for us excessively comfortable Americans to sit excessively comfortably at our keyboards and in our radio stations and remark that we should "celebrate" our "victory" despite the Iraqi casualties and that those casualties are the "cost of doing business." Bombs aren't falling on us or on our loved ones. Our children aren't dying. (See "This Is What 'Liberation' Looks Like" below.)
Time and time again I witness my fellow Americans say and do things that give the rest of the world plenty of reason to despise Americans.
Let's get this straight: This isn't a fucking formula. It is not acceptable that the "coalition forces" kill a thousand innocent Iraqis if doing so might -- might -- prevent the deaths of more than a thousand innocent Iraqis at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Anyone who would argue such a cold calculus is cold-blooded and has no respect, no reverence, for human life. If it were he or she or his or her loved one who had been killed or maimed by gunfire or a landmine or a grenade or a bomb or a missile, it would be quite another thing. Suddenly human life would be sacrosanct.
Which points to a disturbing fact: The majority of Americans, no matter how much they might deny it, consider American lives, especially white American lives, to be far more valuable than the lives of those who live in other nations, especially those whose skin is not white.
Perhaps the most telling example of this is the fact that the U.S. military is not even bothering to count the bodies of slaughtered Iraqis in the Second Bush Gulf War for Oil.
To use just one of many other examples, why didn't the Great White Liberator do anything when hundreds of thousands of people were being slaughtered in Rwanda? Could it be because Rwandans have brown skin and that the United States has no economic interests there?
Have I failed to convince you that the majority of Americans believe that their lives are more important than the lives of others on the planet? If so, then honestly answer these two questions: How did Americans feel when some in the Middle East publicly celebrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001? How would this statement fly with Americans: "The destruction of the World Trade Center was just the cost of doing business"? (If you're not a believer now, you're just in denial.)
No, the rest of the world does not hate us because of our "freedom" or our "democracy" or our affluence. They hate us because we are assholes, because we are perfectly comfortable doing to others on the planet that which we would never tolerate ourselves. And because we absolutely refuse to admit that our motives and actions are at times less than perfectly moral and just. We're Amurica, dammit, and God is on our side.
The only journalist I've seen get the "victory" over Iraq right is San Francisco columnist Mark Morford. While even the left-leaning journalists feel the need to make excuses for the United States' immoral, illegal, unprovoked and imperialist attack upon Iraq, in his column today, Morford (as usual) is right on target: "Yay! The gorilla has crushed the mouse," he begins. "The bazooka has blown apart the BB gun. The dinosaur has stomped the fly. Yay!"
(If you read Kamiya's dreadful apologist commentary and need to recover, as I did, I highly recommend Morford's column.)
To those who still believe that we Americans have reason to celebrate, I leave the conclusion of Morford's column:
Sure enough, Baghdad fell like an old Tinker-Toy fort. The pointless battle has indeed been "won," as everyone knew it would be. But the real war -- ideological, religious, geopolitical, petrochemical -- is only just beginning. And, as the Shrubster says, it won't be over until the last terrorist is killed.
Good thing we just keep creating them, eh, George?
7:35:16 PM 
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