Leading by Despoilment and Desecration

We are the shining city on the hill, the leaders of the free world who would show the ignorant how they should live: We rape the land and profane the dead bodies of our enemies so that we can maintain the American way of life. Why do the unenlighted object to our methods? Have they not yet realized the sacredness of consumerism?

Our revered senators know what is best for us. They have voted to allow the oil barons to destroy the 1.5 million–acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska in search of the billions of barrels of oil that they believe are there. The drilling provision is now to be tucked into budget legislation so that it can't be filibustered, under Senate rules. And when the proposed $2.6 trillion budget, loaded with pork and chopping needed funds from social programs, is approved within the next couple of weeks, the drilling provision will become law. Whatever the amount of recoverable oil in Alaska, the presence of humans and pipelines will disturb the habitats of caribou, polar bears, and migratory birds. But why worry about the ecosystem? We must feed our oil habit.

Elsewhere in the world, we are apparently busy burning the bodies of Taliban fighters, trying to incite hatred:

Australia’s SBS television network broadcast video that purportedly showed U.S. soldiers burning the bodies of the suspected Taliban fighters in the hills outside the southern village of Gonbaz, near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

The network said the video was taken by a freelance journalist, Stephen Dupont, who told the Associated Press he was embedded with the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade earlier this month. Dupont said the burnings happened Oct. 1. ...

In the video, which was seen by the AP, two soldiers who spoke with American accents later broadcast taunting messages that the SBS said targeted the village, which was believed to be harboring Taliban soldiers.

“Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to come down and retrieve their bodies,” said one message read in the local dialect by a soldier, according to a transcript.

Dupont said the soldiers responsible for the loudspeaker broadcasts were part of a U.S. Army psychological operations unit. ...

“This is against Islam. Afghans will be shocked by this news. It is so humiliating,” said Faiz Mohammed, a Muslim leader. “There are very, very dangerous consequences from this. People will be very angry.”

What did our illustrious president learn at Yale when he was earning his degree in history? It must have been that in war, enemies eventually submit to and refrain from attacking those who are harsh and abusive, who lie and torture. But U.S. Army officials investigating the reported burning and taunting say that if the event did occur, it "would be in violation of U.S. Army procedures and an apparent violation of military law." One official said, "This doesn't look good."

It doesn't, eh? When your mission from God is to democratize the world, what's wrong with making up reasons to start a war with a country that didn't choreograph a terrorist attack on your financial center, so that you can pillage and plunder your way to more oil and lucrative contracts for your oil-company cronies—er, um ... colleagues? After all, we're protecting the American way of life.


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