Posted on 05/07/2003 5:15:08 PM PDT by Leisler
I knew that the wave of anti-Americanism that would swell up after the Iraq war would make me feel ill. And it has. It has made me much, much more ill than I had expected.
My anti-Americanism has become almost uncontrollable. It has possessed me, like a disease. It rises up in my throat like acid reflux, that fashionable American sickness. I now loathe the United States and what it has done to Iraq and the rest of the helpless world.
I can hardly bear to see the faces of Bush and Rumsfeld, or to watch their posturing body language, or to hear their self-satisfied and incoherent platitudes. The liberal press here has done its best to make them appear ridiculous, but these two men are not funny.
I was tipped into uncontainable rage by a report on Channel 4 News about "friendly fire", which included footage of what must have been one of the most horrific bombardments ever filmed. But what struck home hardest was the subsequent image, of a row of American warplanes, with grinning cartoon faces painted on their noses. Cartoon faces, with big sharp teeth.
It is grotesque. It is hideous. This great and powerful nation bombs foreign cities and the people in those cities from Disneyland cartoon planes out of comic strips. This is simply not possible. And yet, there they were.
Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.
We are accustomed to these sobriquets; to phrases such as "collateral damage" and "friendly fire" and "pre-emptive strikes". We have almost ceased to notice when suicide bombers are described as "cowards". The abuse of language is part of warfare. Long ago, Voltaire told us that we invent words to conceal truths. More recently, Orwell pointed out to us the dangers of Newspeak.
But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane.
There, I have said it. I have tried to control my anti-Americanism, remembering the many Americans that I know and respect, but I can't keep it down any longer. I detest Disneyfication, I detest Coca-Cola, I detest burgers, I detest sentimental and violent Hollywood movies that tell lies about history.
I detest American imperialism, American infantilism, and American triumphalism about victories it didn't even win.
On April 29, 2000, I switched on CNN in my hotel room and, by chance, saw an item designed to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war. The camera showed us a street scene in which a shabby elderly Vietnamese man was seen speaking English and bartering in dollars in a city that I took to be Ho Chi Minh City, still familiarly known in America by its old French colonial name of Saigon.
"The language of Shakespeare," the commentator intoned, "has conquered Vietnam." I did not note down the dialogue, though I can vouch for that sentence about the language of Shakespeare. But the word "dollar" was certainly repeated several times, and the implications of what the camera showed were clear enough.
The elderly Vietnamese man was impoverished, and he wanted hard currency. The Vietnamese had won the war, but had lost the peace.
Just leave Shakespeare and Shakespeare's homeland out of this squalid bit of revisionism, I thought at the time. Little did I then think that now, three years on, Shakespeare's country would have been dragged by our leader into this illegal, unjustifiable, aggressive war. We are all contaminated by it. Not in my name, I want to keep repeating, though I don't suppose anybody will listen.
America uses the word "democracy" as its battle cry, and its nervous soldiers gun down Iraqi civilians when they try to hold street demonstrations to protest against the invasion of their country. So much for democracy. (At least the British Army is better trained.)
America is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors. Well, it doesn't really execute them - it just keeps them in jail for years and years until they are old enough to execute, and then it executes them. It administers drugs to mentally disturbed prisoners on Death Row until they are back in their right mind, and then it executes them, too.
They call this justice and the rule of law. America is holding more than 600 people in detention in Guantánamo Bay, indefinitely, and it may well hold them there for ever. Guantánamo Bay has become the Bastille of America. They call this serving the cause of democracy and freedom.
I keep writing to Jack Straw about the so-called "illegal combatants", including minors, who are detained there without charge or trial or access to lawyers, and I shall go on writing to him and his successors until something happens. This one-way correspondence may last my lifetime. I suppose the minors won't be minors for long, although the youngest of them is only 13, so in time I shall have to drop that part of my objection, but I shall continue to protest.
A great democratic nation cannot behave in this manner. But it does. I keep remembering those words from Nineteen Eighty-Four, on the dynamics of history at the end of history, when O'Brien tells Winston: "Always there will be the intoxication of power… Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever."
We have seen enough boots in the past few months to last us a lifetime. Iraqi boots, American boots, British boots. Enough of boots.
I hate feeling this hatred. I have to keep reminding myself that if Bush hadn't been (so narrowly) elected, we wouldn't be here, and none of this would have happened. There is another America. Long live the other America, and may this one pass away soon.
It is a disease, Margaret. You are mentall ill.
Margaret, pick up the phone...right now. Yes, pick it up. Dial "0". Yes. Let it ring. That's right.
The operator has answered? Tell her to connect you with a psychiatrist--any psychiatrist; it's an emergency. Tell her, Margaret. Yes. Atta girl.
Has he answered yet? Okay now. Tell him to send an ambulance. It's an emergency.
Okay, now just wait until it arrives. That's right, Margaret.
Just wait and try to relax. Don't do anything else.
Which is exactly what she's all upset about.
Remember this. Remember the carnage, and the death, and know that this is only a small fraction of the force we are capable of unleashing. Remember, and never threaten or attack our nation again, or we shall unleash the cartoon faces on you.
Feeling a hankering to listen to some Aqua right now....
I am sure the lady would prefer the machines to be painted 100% bureaucratic grey and the agents of death to be cold emotionless agents of The State.
But there was something about those playfully grinning warplane faces that went beyond deception and distortion into the land of madness. A nation that can allow those faces to be painted as an image on its national aeroplanes has regressed into unimaginable irresponsibility. A nation that can paint those faces on death machines must be insane
She is goes in to great detail about being offending by “those faces on death machines” but the shark mouth on the American aircraft go back to the Flying Tigers and there P40’s defending China from Imperial Japan…. And guess who the Flying Tigers copy there shark mouth from…. The British and there Tomahawk (P40’s) in North Africa fighting Rommel and the Nazi
Others have written eloquently about the euphemistic and affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction: Big Boy, Little Boy, Daisy Cutter, and so forth.
On affectionate names that the Americans give to their weapons of mass destruction Let see the British in WW2 had a 4000 pound bomb call “The Cookie” and a 12000 pound bomb call “Tall Boy”
The Brits (god love em) help save the world (and her own family most likely) with weapon with painted faces and cute names just so she could grow up to be a.... stupid ignorance bitch
Seriously, what a great article, and indicative of how the rest of the (sane, non-fascist) world views our country. I'm ashamed.
Anyone have the contact info for Homeland Security? This is a candidate for investigation if I've ever seen one.
'Superb. Needs memorizing.'
It's already on my referigerator
This is a perfect example of an emotional orientation that is more tribal than political. "Her" America had an election "stolen," "her" politicians are in the minority, "her" internationalist, multilateral, collectivist, etc, etc, preferences are no longer "progressing," her tribe has lost the power it felt was rightfully its forever once captured.
There are a lot of Americans who feel exactly the same way. And they hate, oh, my, how they do hate. If you wonder how normal people could be goaded into smashing Jewish shops and heads during Kristallnacht, this is how. You cannot reason with these people, they are sick, and contrary to what this one asserts, they like it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.