So says a Pentagon report today: "When a roadside bomb killed four American soldiers in Baghdad Sunday night it brought the U.S. military death toll in Iraq to 4,000."My, isn't that precious. The most gruesome and appalling statement made on this pitiable occasion comes from our own Commander-in-Chief:
"I have vowed in the past and I will vow so long as I'm president to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain, that in fact there is an outcome that will merit the sacrifice," he said.
When a proud and capable American citizen enlists in the United States Armed Forces, it is to preserve his nation and its values against foreign threats.
When, instead, he is sent to a foreign country to preserve and extend an expansive and perpetual empire of aggression and interventionism, his unsought death should be viewed not as some kind of bizarre sacrificial offering but as a grotesque and horrible purchase in a fool's bargain.
4,000 dead is nothing to a gargantuan, bloodthirsty nation bent on policing the world, crushing self-determination, and forcing its own myopic will down the throats of unwilling multitudes.
To die in an unjust war not only is not a sacrifice -- as our high commander so blithely claims, with his crocodile tears -- it is an eternal and unremitting shame that no shallow politician, present or future, will redeem with such a disgusting rhetorical flourish.
4,000. God Damn America.
FURTHER READING
"The Media Must Ask Specific Foreign Policy Questions" by Michael Scheuer.
"The Chicken Doves" by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone, Feb 21, 2008.
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugliosi.
