“Good guys do good, bad guys do evil, and we’re the good guys.”

[webofevil]

All you need to know about current US foreign policy is encapsulated in that sentence. It’s the “philosophy” underlying their more troubling actions. It honestly doesn’t matter that America destroyed Iraq’s infrastructure so that its own corporations could get rich building a new one, or that they deliberately don’t count how many thousands of Iraqis have died in the chaos (in the stirring words of General Tommy Franks, “We don’t do bodycounts”), or that the US can (and do) derogate from any aspect of international law at will by claiming that it doesn’t apply in these circumstances they just thought of. They’re the good guys, and so whatever they do (to borrow a current favourite phrase from the esteemed strictlytrue) is refracted through that prism.

If another country, say, suddenly bombed a pharmaceutical factory in a country with which they were not engaged in hostilities, leading to thousands of deaths due to a consequent total lack of antibiotics in said country—would they get away with it? Would they escape even the harsh burden of having to apologise? No, they would be evildoers. Thus they would be doing evil, and would be ripe for retribution. (Maybe even with a bit of infrastructure-rebuilding on the side. You’re going to need a temp to deal with all this extra paperwork, Mr Cheney.)

Actually, Dick C is a perfect example of how those whose vision is not fogged with delirious visions of angels versus demons have their steely gaze fixed hard on the money. Still, it never hurts to invoke the angels and demons when someone notices what you’re up to. Then anyone who criticises is an evildoer—and we all know what happens to them.

So the US will not accept that its troops are “occupying” Iraq, as that’s what aggressors and bad guys do. They are helping rebuild a country (or at least helping US firms to do so). They are bringing peace and stability (and setting up strategic military bases of their own while they’re at it). They are lovely-fying Iraq. Anything but occupying it.

It may seem too fatuously obvious even to have to state the good guys vs evildoers bit, but I find it sometimes helps to remind myself that this is what’s going on inside their heads. It’s not arrogance. There’s no doublethink required. An atrocity can’t be an atrocity if we commit it, because we’re good guys.

With good guys like this, who needs etc.

Comments

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

Y DO U H8 FREEDOM????!!1

[strictlytrue.livejournal.com]

whatever they do (to borrow a current favourite phrase from the esteemed strictlytrue is refracted through that prism.

I *have* been saying that a lot recently, haven't I? Perhaps I should change the name of my journal.

In one of those odd moments of serendipity, this posting appeared in my friends list next to alsharih, who is a US infantry NCO currently serving in Iraq. His comments show that your observation is right, sort of. I think he, and quite a few others like him, really do believe they are securing a better future for Iraq, and are doing their level best to make it possible - albeit from the persepective of the paradigm you set out above.

Moreover, what ordinary infantrymen think and do is one thing, what Bush, Cheney and co. try to get out of it all, quite another.