Of "11/9" and "9/11"
Today is Saturday, 11 September 2010.
For some, it’s not enough that America be the lesser of evils: it must be the best of all possible worlds, and Americans must be as gods.
‘Tis simple: define the USA/USE as divinely founded as a “Christian” nation, and then, by definition, anything it does, however evil it may seem to the untutored and foolish eye, must be, by definition, The Good. (One reason I’m an existentialist, believing that existence precedes essence, but that’s another story.) “Christian nation” is an inherent contradiction in terms, for nations are created to worship and serve themselves, not any other deity before them.
Such American “exceptionalism” is merely an egomaniacal arrogance common to most nations, “races”, clans, etc., as well as to narcissistic individuals, and no mark of divine favour.
The USA/USE originated as an English military colony, dispatched to the “New World”/Far Western Europe to steal by force majeure. In such military colonies, there are no civilians: every person is a cog in the machine – females are breeders, and children are soldiers-in-development or breeders-in-development. Under the customs of war which have prevailed throughout time, Native Americans were fully justified, in self-defense, in killing both adults and children: heaven knows the military colonists did.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 of “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”, it was mere self-serving propaganda: the Native Americans might just as well have written of “the merciless English savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”.
When the USA/USE made war on Japan, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, etc. (and this is to speak only of post-1941), it recognized no civilians: the rains of munitions fell on the just and the unjust alike.
The USA/USE has always played by the rule that The Enemy has no civilians; the USA/USE has no combatants. The Enemy has no innocents; the USA/USE has none guilty.
“9/11” was a case of sauce for the gander, of chickens coming home to roost, of “purposes mistook/Fall’n on the inventors heads”, of the USA/USE being done unto, as it has always done unto others.
Which no more justifies those attacks, than it justifies the attacks by the USA/USE. Which is to say, that “9/11” wasn’t “the day when everything changed”: it was business as usual, a cost of doing the business of empire as usual. Like any nation, the USA/USE, by its own pandemic violence, put its own citizens in mortal jeopardy. The USA/USE loaded the gun of history, and handed it to others, who obligingly pulled the trigger.
It’s crucial to remember: before the USA/USE annexed “9/11” for its own purposes, it was known in much of the world as “11/9”, in memory of the day in 1973 when the Chilean military, aided and abetted by CIA, overthrew the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende Gossens, assassinated him, and imposed a long and vicious dictatorship.
I condemn hate, violence, and unrighteousness on every side, and mourn all the dead.
For some, it’s not enough that America be the lesser of evils: it must be the best of all possible worlds, and Americans must be as gods.
‘Tis simple: define the USA/USE as divinely founded as a “Christian” nation, and then, by definition, anything it does, however evil it may seem to the untutored and foolish eye, must be, by definition, The Good. (One reason I’m an existentialist, believing that existence precedes essence, but that’s another story.) “Christian nation” is an inherent contradiction in terms, for nations are created to worship and serve themselves, not any other deity before them.
Such American “exceptionalism” is merely an egomaniacal arrogance common to most nations, “races”, clans, etc., as well as to narcissistic individuals, and no mark of divine favour.
The USA/USE originated as an English military colony, dispatched to the “New World”/Far Western Europe to steal by force majeure. In such military colonies, there are no civilians: every person is a cog in the machine – females are breeders, and children are soldiers-in-development or breeders-in-development. Under the customs of war which have prevailed throughout time, Native Americans were fully justified, in self-defense, in killing both adults and children: heaven knows the military colonists did.
When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1776 of “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”, it was mere self-serving propaganda: the Native Americans might just as well have written of “the merciless English savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”.
When the USA/USE made war on Japan, Germany, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, etc. (and this is to speak only of post-1941), it recognized no civilians: the rains of munitions fell on the just and the unjust alike.
The USA/USE has always played by the rule that The Enemy has no civilians; the USA/USE has no combatants. The Enemy has no innocents; the USA/USE has none guilty.
“9/11” was a case of sauce for the gander, of chickens coming home to roost, of “purposes mistook/Fall’n on the inventors heads”, of the USA/USE being done unto, as it has always done unto others.
Which no more justifies those attacks, than it justifies the attacks by the USA/USE. Which is to say, that “9/11” wasn’t “the day when everything changed”: it was business as usual, a cost of doing the business of empire as usual. Like any nation, the USA/USE, by its own pandemic violence, put its own citizens in mortal jeopardy. The USA/USE loaded the gun of history, and handed it to others, who obligingly pulled the trigger.
It’s crucial to remember: before the USA/USE annexed “9/11” for its own purposes, it was known in much of the world as “11/9”, in memory of the day in 1973 when the Chilean military, aided and abetted by CIA, overthrew the democratically-elected government of Salvador Allende Gossens, assassinated him, and imposed a long and vicious dictatorship.
I condemn hate, violence, and unrighteousness on every side, and mourn all the dead.
posted by HH at 6:06 AM
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