America's Mortal Secret
There is a connection between Iraq and the US firebombing of cities at the end of World War II. There is a connection with the Vietnam War, which ended 30 years ago last week. Despite all the talk about Sept. 11, 2001, as a moment of transcendent change, the events of that day, and what followed from them, were not transforming. Rather, they were revealing an epiphany laying bare currents of an American transformation set moving years before in massive acts of reprisal, beginning with the bombing of cities in Germany and Japan and continuing through the extremities of the US air war in Southeast Asia.
The bombing of cities in those wars, carried on even after studies had shown such bombing to be strategically futile, amounted to terrorism campaigns. That remains a harsh truth with which the American conscience has never reckoned. And after losing in Vietnam, the United States imposed a punitive 20-year embargo on that country for no other reason than the hurt we felt at having lost.
This is not how we see ourselves. Arlington National Cemetery is a garden again, a beautiful memorial to the many who died with only good intentions. But revenge remains its mortal secret, and America's.
- posted by geoff @ #