“My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. If they say, ‘Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause; let us swallow them alive like Sheol, even whole, as those who go down to the pit; we will find all kinds of precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil; throw in your lot with us, we shall all have one purse,’ my son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your feet from their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood. Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net in the sight of any bird; but they that lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives. So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence; it takes away the life of its possessors.”
Proverbs, 1:10-19
Electrode strapped penises and a mass of hooded brown bodies stacked to the heavens like Khufu’s Pyramid — images that could just as easily be the fragment of Anais Nin’s imagination, or the Marquis de Sade’s, or Hiter’s for that matter, than the cruel actions of freedom loving American soldiers, men and women who were allegedly fighting against tyranny and for liberty when weapons of mass destruction could no longer justify what America was doing in Iraq.
In the words of John Lennon, “A working class hero is something to be.”
Even if the number of soldiers implicated in this scandal remains small, though a recent “New Yorker” article indicates otherwise, the ramifications of these incidents, systematic or not, creates a worldwide public opinion crisis for the United States, especially in the Middle East and Europe.
A recent Pew Poll found that 66 percent of people in Morocco and 70 percent in Jordan, both relatively moderate countries, believe suicide bomb attacks against American targets are ”justifiable.”
Though killing civilians can never be just, it’s easy to understand why Jordanians and Moroccans feel as they do — America is being one hell of a pompous sphincter of a country.
The rest of the world doesn’t dislike us because they are jealous of our prosperity; they dislike us because we have allowed the arrogance of machismo to guide our foreign policy.
International diplomacy should not entail bragging about how large our national penis is or becoming the worldwide alpha male.
Somehow, the United States has transformed itself into the proverbial fat kid on the playground who uses all his muscles, sans the most effective one, to get what he wants.
When someone stands up to that fat kid and punches him in the nose, American cultural mores disseminated through our vast, culturally imperialistic entertainment media indicate the rest of the world should shoulder that brave soul who defeated the bully and parade him through the streets. Ever watched “A Christmas Story” or heard of David and Goliath?
In such a modest society, making a defeated male masturbate (as depicted in the photographs recently revealed) while another is forced to his knees, open mouthed, can be considered worse than death, worse than any of Saddam Hussein’s tortures.
America now must justify the vile actions of its so-called patriots, if not to the rest of the world, at least to itself.
Perhaps, for just a moment, we can understand what it is like to be German.
It’s easy to conveniently push images and words of anguish and agony into the murky recesses of our minds, only to recall the horror in the surreal terror of sweaty night wakenings, but as Americans we have the patriotic duty to question what this war means for this country and what it will force it to become.