Americana Mindless

Kissinger so loved power that he was willing to kiss the ass of Richard Nixon, a drunk, insane anti-Semite ('Henry, there are too many goddamed Jews in this administration!'), after cynically switching loyalties from the Democrats. Of course, it is a measure of the man that he also bit the ass he kissed; loyalty was never a strong point for this Nobel laureate, surely the most undeserving peace prize winner in the history of the award. Vlad the Impaler and Attila the Hun did a lot more good. Henry presided not only over the murder of the legally elected president of Chile, Salvatore Allende, and the ascent of the vile and deadly Augusto Pinochet, but also over 'Operation Phoenix' in Vietnam, which was responsible for approximately 50,000 bullets in the back of an equal number of Vietnamese heads. No charges, no trials. Sound familiar? . . . free-fire zones, in which any living thing was killed, including oxen, cattle, and dogs. Even the damn animals were commies! Men and women were thrown out of helicopters at height in order to gather 'intelligence' from others on board. Well, they weren't men and women, actually - they were just 'gooks,' 'slants.' Sort of like Rumsfeld's ragheads. Men, women and children were tortured by drowning or near drowning in buckets of water, or worse. Like at Iwo Jima, gold teeth were extracted from dead mouths, and silly us, we thought only the Nazis could or would sink that low. The Mai Lai massacre was only one of very many. Through it all, Henry bombed and burned and tortured and murdered and puckered and kissed Nixon's ass, and demanded the respect of the world. After all, as he is never shy to remind us, it's "Doctor" Kissinger. And on Nixon's gravestone is the word 'Peacemaker.' Perhaps Bush's will read 'Truth-teller.' It is to weep.

How does a nation lose its mind? Ask the ancient Romans. Ask the Nazis. Ask the Khmer Rouge, who executed people for wearing eyeglasses, reasoning that they must be bourgeois intellectuals for wanting to see. Ask Robert Mugabe. Ask George W. Bush, or the millions who voted for his gangster government. Or Condoleezza, that oily Olive Oyl from the Bizarro world, yet another dubious doctor of something-or-other. Ask Rumsfeld or the soon-to-be-confirmed attorney-general, surely the most insane Cabinet choice in the history of the US.

In nominating Gonzalez, the president might just well be saying 'F*** you America, F*** you, world: see what I can do if I want to?' Alberto Gonzalez is not qualitatively different than Uday Hussein or his dad in that he is willing to utilize and justify torture to achieve his dubious ends. To call it anything else is simply legalese sleaze. To have accepted such immoral and outrageous counsel will forever remain a blight on the presidency of the USA. It can never recover, no matter how much God talks to George W. or the next incumbent, should there be one. (One can imagine the 22nd Amendment being repealed so that W. can work his presidential magic for life.) A few years ago it would have seemed unimaginable that the United States, for all its faults, would engage in torture of prisoners or indefinite detention of them without charge or trial. Now any depravity not only seems possible, but likely. I sometimes warn critical outspoken American writers to be careful: times have changed, anything is possible. America is crazy. And mean. Watch out!

It is astonishing that so little was learned from the experience in Vietnam (but perhaps not so much given the ignorance and arrogance of the criminal gang in Washington). Soldiers are coming home from Iraq dead, maimed, insane. 'Stop-loss' policy amounts to a form of indenture, a 'back-door' draft, a new form of slavery. Once again, troops, in spite of all the patriotic rhetoric from generals and politicians, are considered eminently expendable nothings. If the war against the 'terrorists' goes on for much longer, young Americans will once again be sent off to fight and die without any choice.

Land of the free! Bush used the term 'freedom' ad nauseum in his mediocre inaugural speech (which the best thing one can say about is that at least it wasn't written by the execrable David Frum); on Bush's clumsy tongue words lose all meaning, or come to mean their opposite. Freedom? Tell it to some young kid at Guantanamo who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time three years ago. Or to a young boy at Abu Grhaib being raped in front of his father. The fatuous fathead Rumsfeld sees nothing wrong with any of this. And he's a Christian too. Some people have it all. Did he finally stop the torture and outright murder? Not quite; he banned digital cameras, just as Jesus no doubt would have done. Out of sight, out of mind. Except Americans can no longer plead ignorance, or charge that George stole the election. Crimes are being committed in the name of every citizen, and while the president famously said 'You're with us or you're with the terrorists,' there is, in fact, another equally black and white choice. You're with George or you are devoted to doing whatever is necessary to rid the White House and the Republican party of the cancer that has infected them.

If the Geneva conventions are as 'quaint' as the ghastly new attorney-general has it, with Bush and Rumsfeld's presumed concurrence, then perhaps we should declare equally 'quaint' any respect for them. Perhaps a suitable reward, say fifty million dollars, could be offered to anyone who manages to bring either of them to justice. George purported to want Osama 'dead or alive,' but we'll be a little more charitable and insist that these criminals be handed over for trial without a scratch. A suitable bonus could be added for Kissinger. Sorry: "Doctor" Kissinger. Try him at his think tank, where deep thinkers now kiss his fat ass.

John S. Hatch is a writer and film-maker living in Vancouver, BC. He can be reached at johnhatch@canada.com.

© John S. Hatch All rights reserved. You may republish under the following conditions: An active link to the original publication must be provided. You must not alter, edit or remove any text within the article, including this copyright notice. Information Clearing House [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on January 30, 2005]