Happiness surrounds us like the pall of death
Marines in the news again. This time for allegedly killing something like 19 Iraqi citizens, all but one unarmed.
Allegedly.
There are at least two versions to every story that you read in Time or Newsweek (this story defaces the covers of both). One kernel of truth to cling to is that the United States is fast becoming the steward of the world, wiping noses and bullet wounds - and inflicting more than their share - where ever necessary. This is fundamentally wrong, whether you are Demo, Repub, Indy, or Appalachian. It goes against pretty much everything that Democracy stands for. That's where the left's argument ends.
This is true.
What is also true is that Marines have a hard job. And not just Marines, but all of the armed services. They work a thankless job, worse than anything Sam Walton has ever infected America with, and they do it 24-7 for years at a time. Add that to the equation, and when you read about some Iraqis who were gunned down in the phobia-ridden confines of some tiny mud hut, it doesn't seem so god damned appalling, does it? Here ends the argument from the right. It is also true.
The hidden truth behind this story is one that has surfaced ever since the beginning of this war: the "innocent" deaths in Iraq - the unarmed men, women and children - are the faults of the newly deceased themselves, bloated and pussing though they are. They forfeited their lives to Charon or the Reaper or Osiris or who-the-fuck-ever when they let Nazis like Hussein and bin Laden rule them like meat puppets in some sand-circus macabre. And now their lives of uneventful, complacent subjugation are complete: the biggest Nazi of them all has troops swarming like ants - stinging the populace with M-1s and Austria '41s and half-hearted Democracy in a place that will never understand that word.
This is true, but you'll never read it in Newsweek.
Allegedly.
There are at least two versions to every story that you read in Time or Newsweek (this story defaces the covers of both). One kernel of truth to cling to is that the United States is fast becoming the steward of the world, wiping noses and bullet wounds - and inflicting more than their share - where ever necessary. This is fundamentally wrong, whether you are Demo, Repub, Indy, or Appalachian. It goes against pretty much everything that Democracy stands for. That's where the left's argument ends.
This is true.
What is also true is that Marines have a hard job. And not just Marines, but all of the armed services. They work a thankless job, worse than anything Sam Walton has ever infected America with, and they do it 24-7 for years at a time. Add that to the equation, and when you read about some Iraqis who were gunned down in the phobia-ridden confines of some tiny mud hut, it doesn't seem so god damned appalling, does it? Here ends the argument from the right. It is also true.
The hidden truth behind this story is one that has surfaced ever since the beginning of this war: the "innocent" deaths in Iraq - the unarmed men, women and children - are the faults of the newly deceased themselves, bloated and pussing though they are. They forfeited their lives to Charon or the Reaper or Osiris or who-the-fuck-ever when they let Nazis like Hussein and bin Laden rule them like meat puppets in some sand-circus macabre. And now their lives of uneventful, complacent subjugation are complete: the biggest Nazi of them all has troops swarming like ants - stinging the populace with M-1s and Austria '41s and half-hearted Democracy in a place that will never understand that word.
This is true, but you'll never read it in Newsweek.
posted by stephen at 10:47 PM
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