We're the good guys!

We're the good guys, right? This is the standard argument given when one asks what right we have to demand that Iran not go nuclear? It is argued that there is no moral equivalence between us having nuclear weapons and Iran having them. We're the good guys. We're the police; the rest of the world is filled with thugs, felons, and criminals, right?

To arrive at this odd conclusion one must swallow whole the propaganda pill given to us through our local indoctrination centers i.e., the public schools, the mass media, and the ever-growing public relations industry.

You don't believe me? Then on what criteria does one base the judgment "We're the good guys"? Did you know that U.S. intervention in a country directly correlates with that nation's level of poverty? If we were really the good guys, only going to these far off places to help people, wouldn't our intervention directly correlate to a nation's prosperity instead? Take Haiti, for example, it has been the number one beneficiary of U.S. intervention and it remains one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere. Are the Haitian people just not smart enough to get it together? Or do we help make sure they will never get it together? It was just three years ago that we kidnapped their democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, a progressive leftist who was actually trying to help the people.

Maybe you disagree with my portrayal of mainstream history in this country, but the basic lie taught in most history classes in this country is that the United States only goes to war for the most noble of reasons. You can see the naivete and ignorance of the American people in statements like, "I just can't believe Bush would lie to take us to war." When I hear this my immediate reply is, "Have we ever been told the truth about why we're going to war?" Take our most "popular war," World War II. If it was about rooting out fascism and making the world safe for democracy, why did we spend so much time and energy after the war destroying the anti-fascist resistance in Europe?

This isn't about good and evil, folks. It's not about labeling the United States as evil and the rest of the world good. It's about taking an honest moral inventory of ourselves and our actions around the world. Patting ourselves on the back and telling everyone we're the good guys might make you feel better, but it completely lacks any substance, and it will do nothing to help us find solutions to the problems we face.

By looking in the mirror and realizing what we have done in the world, what the true cost of empire has been, we enable ourselves to stop the cycle of violence. We may be very good people, generous people, people who truly want to help; but our government obeys another master and abides by another set of rules.

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