It is a commonplace that at the end of WWII scarcely a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer could be found, or even anyone with an inkling that a Holocaust had been taking place. Even as rocks flew through Jewish shop windows and homes were burned, the Good Germans didn't know. Even when Jews began disappearing in huge numbers from right under their noses, the Good Germans weren't aware. Later on, even amongst Holocaust deniers I used to wonder if there were a mitigating percentage, however small, who as otherwise decent human beings simply could not accept the horror that human nature can be so vile. To admit the truth would be to recognize that life was essentially meaningless and insane, with suicide as the only logical course, a choice which the all-powerful instinct for self-preservation attempted to prevent. Thus self-deception for self-preservation; an unhappy compromise. It was the Nazi-exploited Nietzsche who pointed out (in the late 1800's remember) that one must first know the truth in order to bury it. Everybody knew, in one way or another. Violence, after all, is what One-Thousand Year Reichs do, and they must begin very early. So much killing to accomplish!

America, America, Uber Alles

While there is much justified consternation surrounding the truly astonishing stolen elections of George W. Bush—he steals power, then he bloody well does it again—the fact is that for the longest time American foreign policy (and often domestic as well) has been so savage as to shock the world. Yet the average American seems to care as little as the average German did about the Third's Reich's crimes against humanity or the Holocaust. Didn't know, didn't care or—or even liked it very much. 'We' are empire! Therefore 'we' are a priori justified in anything we do. Rules only apply to lesser nations, lesser beings. Michael Ledeen: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”

Just to go back a short way, while George still crusades to 'free' his beloved Iraqis (widely referred to as 'ragheads' and 'sandniggers', bastards and faggots by his heroic men and women in the field), LBJ was a crook with indirect ties to the Mafia, and likely foreknowledge of the Kennedy assassination. Nixon's boys had their inherited gooks and commies to torture and murder and bomb and napalm, and he had even more direct ties to the Mafia from almost the beginning of his criminal career. (And Rumsfeld and Powell were honing their skills for later- Rumsfeld in Defense, Powell as chief spinner for My Lai). Both Nixon and Bush lied about their respective wars, using the most unscrupulous but effective assistants (Murray Chotiner, Karl Rove) in order to get elected, and then surrounded themselves with ambitious thugs and criminals, all rising like pus out of a boil (Kissinger, Mitchell, Erlichman, Haldeman, Liddy, Hunt et al), or far-right religious zealots (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, ‘Scooter’ et al, including the multi-untalented David Frum, sophomoric enough to brag about coining the pathetic comic-book phrase 'Axis of Evil'). Then came Ford, who will always be remembered for pardoning Nixon's crimes, many of which weren't then even known to the public, and as a participant in the official Kennedy assassination cover-up known as the Warren Commission. Meanwhile the CIA continued to mingle, meddle, and assassinate willy-nilly wherever they felt like it. Jimmy Carter may have been a gentler soul, but he welcomed the despised Shah of Iran to America, installed by the US after deposing the elected government of Mohammed Mossedeq for deciding to take control of Iran's own oil resources. The nerve of that uppity Mohammed! (Yet the neo-con tut-tutters keep saying that oil was not a factor in Iraq's invasion—they forgot all about Iran, but would like to visit again, and soon.) The corporate press blubbered on and on when Reagan mercifully died, with scant mention of his murderous if shaky hand, guided by the likes of the truly bizarre Ollie North, John Poindexter, and the depraved (but very ambitious) John Negroponte, impossibly appointed ambassador to Iraq. Well, they needed a psycohpath.

How much American psychic energy was required to 'forget' Reagan's 'freedom fighters' of Nicaragua ('the equivalent of our Founding Fathers', he was already demented enough to pronounce)? They used tactics learned at the famous US Army 'School of Americas' at Ft. Benning, Georgia, also known as 'School of the Assassins', whose distinguished graduates include Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos, formerly of Panama, and Roberto Violo of Argentina. Humans don’t come any meaner or more depraved. The freedom fighters raped nuns and peasant women and used all sorts of lethal terror methods in the countryside to dislodge the elected government. Preferred targets were teachers and medical staff, but they bagged an Archbishop as well. A favorite horror method involved the stuffing of a grenade into the bleeding, broken-toothed mouth of an innocent man woman, and yes, even child (of course child, when you think about it) and then detonation in front of what might be left of the as-good-as-dead family. Well it seemed to work in the long run. Ronnie must have been proud. And looking at The Gipper's shiny coffin and poor Nancy's touching grief, how hard was it to forget Reagan's prior treasonous secret interference in foreign policy affairs in order to have the American hostages in Iran freed later rather than sooner, with arms as a reward, more cash to the freedom fighters for grenades, and coke to California Blacks as a byproduct? He forgot all about it, right away. Ollie too. I wonder if any one of those dignitaries at the funeral were trying to forget about Ronnie's pal 'Blowtorch Bob' (D'Aubisson) of El Salvador, and how he came to acquire his colorful sobriquet? Let’s say a prayer for Blowtorch Bob. Did Nancy love him too?

On and on. Bush I's puerile denial that he wasn't in Reagan and Ollie's loopy 'loop' regarding Iran-Contra, his message to Saddam through Ambassador April Glaspie
(July 25, 1990) that America was neutral regarding Iraqi plans vis a vis Kuwait, then presto! Ill-equipped, ill-trained and terrified Iraqi soldiers were being buried alive in the desert, surrender not even an option. Later, elsewhere, weaponless soldiers were picked off one by one by stationary, low flying helicopters while their brave pilots whooped and hollered, intoxicated by the sheer joy of delivering no-risk murder. Then there was the notorious 'Highway of Death', a 60 mile stretch between Mutlaa, Kuwait and Basra where non-combatant soldiers, fleeing back to Iraq on orders and civilian men, women and children were mowed down by bombs (including napalm and/or phosphorus) and bullets from planes and helicopters until not a single human being remained alive. Not even a dog or donkey. Such was the enthusiasm for the sport that extra air traffic controllers had to be brought in so that as many pilots as possible could participate without fear of bumping into each other. Estimated casualties (just dead, no wounded) were in the tens of thousands. Tens of thousands. For nothing. For empire.

Then there came the insane sanctions, which did absolutely nothing to slow the building of palaces for Saddam and his revolting sons (did we forget that America had earlier assisted Saddam in its war against Iran, even providing certain chemicals which were to become famous?) Extending through the Clinton years these otherwise ineffectual measures are conservatively credited with killing one million ordinary Iraqis through malnutrition and lack of basic medicines. Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking, irrevocably America-defining utterances regarding Iraq and America's arrogance and ignorance and self-induced amnesia was not by some slippery, war-mongering Republican from Kentucky, but from educated, refined ex-Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who when asked if the cruel and futile sanctions had been worth the undisputed deaths of 500,000 innocent Iraqi children, looked genuinely thoughtful for a moment, then answered in the affirmative. Yes, it was worth it. It is truly to weep. Adieu America! The requiem is for you too.

Armageddon the Blues

With his second, and only perhaps final term (don't forget, many Americans wanted to amend the Constitution to allow dear old Ronnie a third term; George could just take a third, a fourth...) George W. Bush has felt emboldened to spend his famous political 'capital' in a world growing increasingly wary, fearful, and fed up with America's growing rogue status, lack of trustworthiness, and willingness to embrace violence. That Bush would ever even consider appointing as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then to replace him with another of similar lack of virtue and equally as unwilling to repudiate torture is a signal that the President’s one-finger victory salute was not a joke, as tasteless as it was. To appoint as top law enforcement officer a man who considers the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' and obsolete and the strictures against torture inapplicable, the World Court without jurisdiction is unprecedented in any civilized nation anywhere. Add to that even more draconian elements to the execrably designated 'Patriot Act', and I am genuinely surprised that given the American proclivity for chattering incessantly about love of country and constitution, and bravery and freedom ('Give me freedom, or give me fries!' Freedom fries!) that the streets haven't been deluged with incandescently angry (real) patriots demanding their country back. No not demanding, taking. Perhaps America was always just empty talk, a superpower as vacuous as some of its 'superstars', as George II, lead by the nose by crazy Likudites, crazy crocodile Christians, and just plain power-mad crazies, leads the world to the brink of Armageddon. But there is no Jesus waiting (and, thank goodness, certainly not the creepy Christ of the cretinous Christian right), no Anti-Christ (not even the U.N.), only prolonged hell on earth for the many, hamburgers and SUV's and beer for the few. And of course, Wal-Mart for everyone.

George II insists that we have to be for or against. Well, I'm proud to come out against. I know America is a ruthless and formidable foe, but remember, there are billions of us around the world We are angry and sickened, and perhaps have finally had enough. Violence is not necessary (if only America would learn that)—imagine what a worldwide boycott of every single thing American would do to that already shaky economy, in fairly short order. The dollar would further erode, stock market indices would plunge, more countries would switch to the Euro as reserve currency, foreign owned treasury bonds would be redeemed in the billions of dollars, the American financial system would collapse. For starters. Imagine the American political elite and their oozing advisors not daring to leave the country for fear of arrest for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It happened to Chile's Pinochet in great Britain, and Kissinger escaped detainment in France only by a whisker (or was it a prayer?). Rumsfeld had to cancel a planned trip to Germany for fear of arrest. That America no longer recognizes Geneva Conventions and International Rules of Conduct doesn't mean that more civilized nations no longer do, meaning that members of the Bush putsch had better cancel any travel plans abroad. ‘Just following orders’ didn’t work at the end of the Thousand Year Reich, and nor will it at the conclusion (if indeed it does conclude—by no means a certainty) of the Eight Year one. After Hitler, the world did not recognize that there were any good Germans. Seven years plus into the nightmare that has been the Bush Administration, no American can plead ignorance either.

John Hatch is a writer and film-maker living in British Columbia. He can be reached at john@freakishlyfinefilms.com [1]