USA MILITARY - CONSTITUTIONAL REMINDER

I want to say something on our soldier's
obligations and "enlistment oath." They took
an oath to support and defend the
constitution, not the President, Congress or
ExxonMobil. They are also required to follow
orders per the Uniform Code of Military
Justice (UCMJ). RIGHT NOW the UCMJ is based
on the Nuremberg Principles and this means
soldiers are only obligated to follow
"lawful orders."

This means any orders that are unlawful -
like orders sending them to participate in
wars of aggression in Iraq or Afghanistan -
MUST BE resisted or a soldier violates his
or her oath.

Earlier I referenced Justice Robert Jackson.
At the Nuremberg Trials he said something
that was an important ethical standard that
applies here too when judging others and
ourselves,

"We must never forget that the record on
which we judge these defendants today is the
record on which history will judge us
tomorrow. To pass these defendants a
poisoned chalice is to put it to our own
lips as well."

He also said,

"If certain acts of violation of treaties
are crimes, they are crimes whether the
United States does them or whether Germany
does them, and we are not prepared to lay
down a rule of criminal conduct against
others which we would not be willing to have
invoked against us."

==================

[The following is a response to a friends
comments on American foreign policy.]

One of the first questions we should ask
on beliefs is why we hold them. Do we cling
to beliefs because of truths based on
knowledge or because they are self-serving?
The issue of beliefs being self-serving
versus true should be an important
consideration. In the face of uncomfortable
truths do we show bravery and stand up for
what is right and true or do we delude the
truth in order to massage our collective
egos?

During the 1950s and 1960s whites in the
US justified adverse racial relations on the
grounds that the blacks were "trouble makers"
and we were protecting order and tradition.

I will assume that a rational, decent
person will do two things: seek the truth
whatever it is, and hold themselves or
groups they identify with to the same
standards as others. For Christians this
should be easy since the moral is wrapped up
in the book of Matthew (chapter 7, verses
1-5).

From what I have gathered this is the
general picture I think you paint and which I
want to address: "We are good guys trying to
bring freedom and democracy to the world and
to ensure the rule of law, but inevitably
people will die in our noble pursuit to do
so."

I think this is self-serving propaganda.
This completely turns reality on its head,
and glosses over our actions. Despite the
near historical truism that every aggressor
and their apologists have always tried to
paint their crimes in a benevolent light
(i.e. when Imperial Japan was laying waste
to Asia they claimed it was to bring an
"earthly paradise" or as the recently
released Saddam Hussein interviews with the
FBI shows even Saddam had a benevolent excuse
for every single crime he ever committed,
and even Hitler claimed to be fighting for a
new and better Europe and that he was
resisting the "wild terror" plaguing
Europe), it is still helpful to look at the
facts.

So, let's go line by line and explore
some relevant facts and laws that relate to
the US.

Amy, Afghans have died, and will continue
to do so while our troops continue to fight
the Taliban...

But the question is: Why? Where was our
concern for the people of Afghanistan when
the Carter administration started secretly
funding, arming and training Islamic
fundamentalists to overthrow a Marxist
government? Where was our concern when the
Soviets were driven out and we bailed? How is
our concern authentic when we are propping up
warlords and drug lords from the Northern
Alliance?

Here is what concerns me: We are
exploiting the welfare of others to justify
our own misdeeds, our crimes. We don't care
for the people of Afghanistan or anywhere
else. Our concern for them is purely a
rhetorical device to be used to justify our
violence at home or abroad. Before the war in
Iraq we constantly talked to ourselves about
every bad thing Saddam ever did but we
routinely left out this vital fact: he did so
with our help, when he was our ally, when he
was serving our interests.

What does the Afghan women's group RAWA
have to say on the US/NATO war and occupation
of their country?

In 2001, the U.S. and its allies occupied
Afghanistan under the beautiful slogans of
"war on terror," "women's rights,"
"liberation" and "democracy." But when they
installed the brutal and criminal warlords
after the fall of the Taliban, everyone knew
that Afghanistan had once again become a
chessboard for world powers. They have their
long-term plans in Afghanistan, and the
plight of our people, and especially of
women, has been misused to legitimize the
foreign military presence in our country.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan to fulfill
its geo-political, economic and regional
strategic interests and to transform
Afghanistan into a strong military base in
the region. In the past seven years, these
troops have even further complicated the
situation of Afghanistan. Not only have they
pumped millions of dollars into the pockets
of savage warlords but the Taliban and other
terrorist groups are more powerful today.
They have turned Afghanistan into the opium
capital of the world, and one of the reasons
for invading Afghanistan was to get hold of
this multi-billion-dollar drug business.

Afghan people have been badly betrayed by
the U.S. and NATO in the past few years.
Despite billions in of aid, Afghan people
are living under awful conditions that are
worse than they were under the Taliban
medieval rule. Afghanistan still faces a
women's rights tragedy, and the everyday
hardships of our masses are beyond
imagination.

The U.S. and NATO have imposed a corrupt
mafia, puppet government on the Afghan
people, a government which is mostly
comprised of warlords and drug lords. And now
efforts are underway to share power with the
Taliban and Islamic Party of Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar.

The U.S. and NATO are killing thousands
of our innocent people, while at the same
time their operations have no impact on the
Taliban, because as they are not really
interested in peace and in stability in
Afghanistan. The presence of the Taliban,
Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups is in
fact necessary for the U.S. and NATO in order
to have a reason for their permanent presence
in Afghanistan. Everyone knows that the
U.S., a superpower, together with the biggest
military pact in the world, NATO, could it is
a matter of days, if not hours, defeat the
Taliban and arrest Mullah Omer and Osama.
But today they need such enemies to justify
keeping their military machine in
Afghanistan.

[...]

The troops should be withdrawn as soon as
possible. This is the first step. They should
adopt less bloody alternatives. We don't want
their so-called liberation and democracy. If
these troops do not withdraw, we are sure
that the Afghan people will have no other
option but to rise up against them. Our
people are already deeply fed up with the
situation. The jokes being made in
Afghanistan are that the Taliban are getting
the most from this situation.

RAWA supports the call for the withdrawal
of the U.S. and NATO troops because
occupation is not a solution. They are
constantly killing civilians, even at a
wedding party. Do you think we are not human
beings and don't have hearts? What would
Americans do if an occupier were killing so
many civilians in the U.S.?

Before going on here are some things to
remember: the war and occupation is illegal.
This is important to consider when, as you
state later, we are the world's police
trying to uphold the law... apparently by
violating it. There was no UN Security
Council authorizing the use of force when we
launched the attack in October of 2001, which
like the Iraq War, is a violation of the UN
Charter and the Nuremberg Principles. Also
consider that our own constitution (article
six) has a supremacy clause that shows that
our violation of international law was also
a violation of domestic law, in fact "the
supreme Law of the Land."

But let's go back to the Nuremberg
Principles for a second. These principles
were established to try the Nazi's for war
crimes, and the "supreme international crime"
that our own supreme court justice, Robert
Jackson, who was also the chief prosecutor
for the US at the tribunals said was
"aggression." Aggressive wars are wars
launched not for defensive purposes. This
principle became enshrined in the UN Charter
in chapter seven. There are only two ways the
use of force can be legal: (1) in
self-defense of an attack and (2)
authorization by the UNSC.

Afghanistan, and Iraq and Bosnia and
Vietnam and Panama and Grenada, neither
attacked us nor did the UNSC give us
authorization to use force.

Here is something else to keep in mind in
regards to Afghanistan. We did not launch the
war to topple the Taliban. That was an excuse
presented only after the bombings began. We
wanted Osama bin Laden and on more than two
occasions the Taliban offered to hand him
over but Bush rejected the offers.

And also in late-October 2001 over 1,000
Afghani tribal leaders trekked to Peshwar,
Pakistan to hold a conference on the
post-Taliban future. They disagreed on many
things but the one thing they agreed on
unanimously was their opposition to US/NATO
bombing of their country. They felt it did
more harm than good, and this was reported in
USA Today.

Furthermore we had no proof of who was
behind the attacks and that is why in June of
2002 the FBI Director, Robert Mueller, was
publicly saying we only "thought" we knew.
So we illegally bombed one of the poorest
countries in the world despite offers to
turn over bin Laden and despite not knowing
who was behind the 9-11 attacks (we have
since learned that none of the planning,
financing or training occurred in
Afghanistan, yet they paid the price for the
world's belligerent juggernaut who felt it
needed to flex his muscles).

But let's move on and come back to other
important things later.

There are always human casualties on all
sides in a war, but maybe you should ask how
many more will die under the oppressive rule
of the Taliban regime should we just decide
to bail out...

Or we can go back to see what RAWA says
on this very question.

If there is a withdrawal, there will
probably be a civil war between the Northern
Alliance and the Taliban, but that would not
be any worse than what is going on now. When
these troops pull out at least we will then
no more be an occupied country. It is the
duty of Afghan people to get rid of the
internal enemies, but today, our internal
enemies are backed and supported by the
external enemies that are the U.S. and NATO.

I just don't believe you sincerely care
about their welfare. Were you an activist
organizing for their welfare before the US
bombed them or is your concern only a facet
in the effort to justify "our" violence? Do
you have anything to say on our past
involvement or our current support for the
Northern Alliance? What about RAWA?

It's really interesting to note that NATO
still exists. Here is a war outfit from the
Cold War created to "fight" the Soviet Union
that ceased to exist twenty years ago. Back
during our aggression against Bosnia, Tony
Blair and Bill Clinton said our attack was
necessary to sustain NATO's "credibility"
and here we are using it to unload the
world's largest military - that spends half
of the world's military budget - on one of
the poorest countries in the world and all in
the name of "defense" and other lofty
excuses. This isn't noble or funny. It's sad
and sickening.

Weather you like it or not, the USA being
the lone superpower in the world has the
responsibility to promote democracy and
freedom abroad because it is good for us, and
it is good for the rest of the world.

We are not bringing or "promoting
democracy and freedom abroad" which is
apparent by our support for dictatorships
like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. We
supported the brutal tyrant in Uzbekistan
until he kicked us out. Here was a man who
ruled like Stalin and boiled his victims
alive and sent elderly women to labor camps
for speaking out.

In fact, our history of foreign policy
has had an interesting pattern: supporting
authoritarian tyrants against popular
movements for national liberation. We even
have historical phrases like "gunboat
diplomacy" and "manifest destiny." Every time
Marines were sent to Haiti, Nicaragua, etc
that claim of "promoting democracy and
freedom" has been undermined. We kicked Spain
out of Cuba just to impose the Platt
Amendment (which helps explain why we are
torturing illegally held prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay) and supported the Batista
dictatorship up until a popular revolution
overthrew and them and after that we
responded with various assassination plots,
terrorist operations (MONGOOSE), coups (Bay
of Pigs, Operation ORTSAC - Castro spelled
backwards - and Swiftstrike) and an embargo
which the UN General Assembly has been voting
on annually to have removed (each year the
world votes something like 180 - 2 with the
lonely two voting to sustain the embargo
being the US and Israel).

There is the history of Operation Gladio
where the CIA had "stay-behind" missions to
subvert democracy in places like Italy and
some of those acts of subversion were
terrorist attacks.

===
McGehee you weasel! SAY IT!!
The CIA mass murdererd innocent civilians
AND BLAMED IT ON COMMUNISTS!!
They did, It was NOT A ONE-OFF ACCIDENT!
The USA did it REGULARLY, the president
HAD TO ORDER IT!!
why can you not say it???
===

And what we did to Greece
from the end of WW2 through the 70s was
criminally outrageous.

== NAME IT!! People still think 9/11
was done by arabs!! ==

And let's not forget the "rat line" the
US used to funnel out Nazi war criminals like
Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons, to South
America where they helped train Brazilian
generals with US aid.

We have supported Apartheid in South
Africa, overthrown the democratically-elected
leader Patrice Lumumba in Congo and supported
Mobutu, and former-CIA agent John Stockwell
has exposed his dirty deeds in Angola.

Phillip Agee, another former-CIA agent
exposed a lot of his dirty deeds in Latin
America in his diary that named names,
places and deeds. The CIA helped organize
coups in Guatemala and Chile to overthrow
democratically leaders (like it did in Iran
in 1953 and Iraq a few years later and Congo
a few years after that). During the 1980s we
backed the Duvalier dictatorships (Papa Doc
and Baby Doc) until a popular uprising
overthrew them and democratically elected
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who we have
overthrown twice! When Nicaraguans overthrew
the Somoza dictatorship the US armed, trained
and guided the Contras in attacking "soft
targets" (i.e. civilians, labor union
organizers, etc). In fact, the World Court
even ruled on the matter and condemned us
for "unlawful use of force." All of this
continues to the present, as in the case of
Honduras.

So this idea that we are "promoting
democracy and freedom abroad" is an
embarrassing untruth.

The right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness is not only an American
right, but a God given one (if you believe
in that sort of thing).

Actually, that is not a right. That is
part of the Declaration of Independence,
which has no legal bearing on our legal
system. When the fifty-something wealthy
white men got together to write our
constitution they left out a lot of the
populist things in the DoI that were used to
garner public support for their revolution.
Historian Howard Zinn recently wrote on
this,

It was not all the common people getting
together to fight against England. They had a
very hard time assembling an army. They took
poor guys and promised them land. They
browbeat people and, oh yes, they inspired
people with the Declaration of Independence.
It's always good, if you want people to go
to war, to give them a good document and have
good words: life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Of course, when they wrote the
Constitution, they were more concerned with
property than life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. You should take notice of these
little things.

The American historian, Charles Beard,
wrote a book on the economic influence at the
constitutional convention back in the early
1900s. It is still a popular book and a good
reference on understanding the topic.

The fact is, without a strong America,
there is no rest of the world. Weather you
like it or not, we are the global backbone
of this earth, and while our system is not
perfect it is the best one that exists today.

Again, our record of involvement in the
world shows a different story and it is
upheld by global opinion. Do you think there
is a reason why the majority of the world
sees us as a bigger threat than Iran and
North Korea?

The "global backbone of this earth" is
not the country using military dominance to
have its say in political and economic
affairs. The backbone is the Global South
and the peasants and farmers and working
class the world over who are exploited by
the political and economic issues we impose
ourselves on. That is why popular uprisings
occur at G-8, World Bank, IMF, WTO and
so-called "Free Trade" meetings the world
over.

We have a strong record of supporting
elitists and authoritarians over the working
class.

Until humans figure out how to live in
harmony, and how to love and serve each other
there will always be class warfare, tyranny
and oppression.

We know how to live it, but the problem
is that states and private tyrannies, like
the US government and corporations whose
interest they serve, won't allow it.

Let's talk about class warfare. The US
government has taken sides and it is not
ours, Daniel. Tyranny, oppression? Again,
the US government has taken sides and the
side isn't pretty. How much of our taxes go
to the Colombian government who kills more
trade unionists than any other country? How
much of our taxes goes to Egypt to finance
their despotic police state? How much of our
taxes went to Indonesia to finance the
Suharto coup, dictatorship, genocide of
hundreds of thousands of Indonesians and East
Timorese? How much of our taxes went to
Turkey during the 1990s when they were
rounding up and killing tens of thousands of
Kurds? How much of our taxes went to Saddam
to help him gas his own people, attack Iran
and prop up his despotic regime before he
became too much of a liability? How much of
our taxes goes to Israel to attack, occupy
and oppress Palestinians and Lebanese in a
racist country that only affords democratic
rights to those who practice the "right"
faith?

And, with that comes the need for law and
government and war to try to police the
goings on in the world, to try to keep as
many people possible out of the hands of
evil.

Don't you think that statement is a bit
paternalistic and jingoistic, Daniel? It
assumes we know what is right for others and
are justified to use unlawful force to
impose it on them. You can't really believe
that, do you? Does this privilege apply to
others too? Remember that biblical quote
above.

Former-State Department personnel,
William Blum once wrote,

For some Americans, belief in the
nobility of US foreign policy may have taken
a kick in the stomach by the release of the
photos in the spring of 2004 showing abuse
and torture of Iraqi prisoners, but for most
a lifetime of inculcated loyalty, faith, and
conviction does not crumble without a great
deal of resistance. Such people should be
asked this question: "What would the United
States have to do in its foreign policy that
would cause you to forsake your basic belief
and support of it? In other words, what for
you would be too much?" Most likely, whatever
dreadfulness they might think of, the United
States has already done it. More than once.
Probably in their own lifetime. And well
documented in an easily available
publication.

I extend this question above to you,
Daniel - what for you would be too much?

Perhaps you should move to Iran where
your views will get you stoned to death and
then tell me if we have the right to fight
for the people who can't fight for
themselves.

But how does that change the facts of our
actions? Don't you think this is a diversion?
I don't think you are even exploring the
legitimacy of the "views."

So what is the purpose of this
note/message? What is the significance of
beliefs and knowledge? What is their ethical
and social significance?

The bedrock of my views, and that of Amy
and many others, is that what is right for
one is right for the other, and what is
wrong for one is wrong for the other. That if
we are to take such ideas like democracy,
freedom, law, and government, and so on
seriously then we must hold ourselves to the
same standards as we do others. And that we
do these ideas no justice to gloss over them
or exploit them to fit agendas that violate
them. So when President Bush told Saddam in
1990 "this aggression against Kuwait won't
stand" then we should know he is a hypocrite
and that his son is a hypocrite and that
nearly every president before him and
certainly every one after him are hypocrites
and criminal thugs.

But what is democracy? What is freedom?
In many ways I think the two are synonymous
in that they both have to do with people's
abilities to manage their own lives.
Democracy/freedom is not the ability to do
whatever one wants regardless of its affects
on others, and neither is it the ability to
choose between options pre-chosen for us. It
is the ability to have a functional say in
the making and deciding of decisions that
affect us.

In Iran we rightly criticize the
electoral system because an unelected group
called the Guardian Council chooses what
candidates can run. So whereas hundreds
petitioned to run, only four were permitted.
And in many ways that is not very different
from our electoral process. In the US
unelected leaders - from the business
community - consider the views and positions
of candidates and throw their money behind
their campaign and predictably the candidate
with the most campaign funding stands a
chance to win. In other words, you can only
be President in this country if the rich
approve of you and finance your campaign. We
all know that politicians will say whatever
they want to get elected but once in office
they will cater to the interests of those who
financed their campaigns. So considering
that Goldman Sachs and other banks financed
Obama's campaign is it any wonder that he has
more closely served the interests of banks
than the working class?

Our foreign policy is not righteous or
good, nor is it upholding the rule of law.
More often than not (and I am not familiar
with ANY "nots") it has been oppressive and
illegal.

I do not rally around our government and
our leaders simply because they are "ours." I
hold them to the very same standards as I do
our "enemies," and being that this is a
relatively free country it is also our duty
and obligation to not blindly serve and
worship our leaders as if they can do no
wrong. The crimes and misdeeds they
perpetrate in our names and with our taxes
should be opposed and resisted.

In the mid-90s President Carter's
National Security Adviser, said this in an
interview on our involvement in Afghanistan
before and during the Soviet invasion,

According to the official version of
history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began
during 1980, that is to say, after the
Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.
But the reality, secretly guarded until now,
is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July
3, 1979 that President Carter signed the
first directive for secret aid to the
opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.
And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in
my opinion this aid was going to induce a
Soviet military intervention.

[...]

That secret operation was an excellent
idea. It had the effect of drawing the
Russians into the Afghan trap... What is
most important to the history of the world?
The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet
empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the
liberation of Central Europe and the end of
the cold war?

Think about that, Daniel. We knowingly
financed, armed and trained religious
fundamentalists with not only the belief
that it would cause a Soviet invasion that
would cause human suffering but with the aim
that that would be it. We used the people of
Afghanistan as a "trap" and could care less
if it resulted in the Taliban or "stirred-up
Moslems" that would later fly planes into a
couple of towers in NYC. If we can get rid
of competition and augment our power then to
hell with the world. And this is coming from
the liberal end of the American
establishment of policy makers! Afghanistan
and Iraq were not and are not threats to us.
The solutions are not wars of aggression
unless we dare to admit to being the
equivalents of the Nazi regime, or any other
government who thinks aggression is a
solution (i.e. Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein,
Slobodan Milosevic).

In your original comment that Amy
responded to you mentioned the absurdity of
what the media chooses as stories. On this,
I agree. That the memorial of Michael Jackson
took precedence over some of the most
horrendous injustices in the world is an
indictment to the integrity of our media. But
I disagree that focusing on a dozen US
soldiers who died while violating their
enlistment oaths and participating in wars of
aggression and deluding ourselves with the
notion that they are heroes or promoting
democracy and freedom or protecting our
freedoms is preferable.

In the US, excluding the world, we are
distorting the reality of issues like
homelessness, poverty, unemployment, the
economy, our health care system, our social
infrastructure, our schools, and so on. The
real life situation of the class war being
waged in this country is largely ignored.
When Congress refuses to let single-payer
advocates testify on health care reform, or
when the "liberal media" fails to give them
space in their papers, but give plenty of
space to insurance companies, and all the
while too many of us are crushing under the
weight of a greedy insurance industry then
something is wrong. Over half of the
Americans who file bankruptcy file over
medical bills and well over half of them have
insurance! Kaiser Family Foundation did a
study on healthcare costs between 2001 and
2007 and found that the arbitrary prices set
by insurance companies accounted for the bulk
of the cost. We pay twice as much per capita
in health care than other developed countries
with single-payer programs and yet we have a
lower quality of health and nearly 50
million without insurance. American car
manufacturers spend more on healthcare per
car than they do steel but this sad reality
is largely ignored in our government and our
press. Nearly 20,000 Americans die every year
due to lack of insurance - and therefore
lack of treatment. This is vastly more
deserving of our attention than a dozen
soldiers who died in a war that is not legal
or just and that they were obliged to resist.

But don't get me wrong. I don't think
those soldiers deserved to die. Not one bit.
Dissent is not equal to hatred or so-called
"anti-Americanism" (on a side note why do we
equate our country with the policies of our
leaders? Don't you find it offensive that our
rich history and culture get suppressed, and
we get defined by the actions of our
government - I mean, if you criticize the
city government of Fort Worth would it make
sense to call you "anti-Fort Worth"? Do
legitimate concerns and criticism have no
place in our society or is total submission
required?). Those soldiers deserved to NOT
be sent. And neither do I think they were
doing their job or protecting us. Opposing
them for their actions doesn't mean I think
they deserve what they get, but that also
doesn't mean we should glorify them based on
lies. These wars are illegal, unjustified
and immoral. Our victims don't want us there.
Our soldiers, who are our people from our
communities, should come home where they
belong.

Last month the New York Times reported
that the referendum the Bush administration
agreed to in the last "status of forces"
agreement we signed in Iraq is quietly being
opposed by the Obama administration. The
referendum gives the people of the Iraq the
right to vote on our early and complete
withdrawal, and the Obama administration
fears we will be kicked out sooner than we
want to (assuming we would ever comply), at
the same time General Casey is saying we
could be there past 2019.

If we are the global police "promoting
democracy and freedom" then who elected us,
and why do we violate international law to
impose our "justice" on the world against
their will? What kind of police officer acts
that way? Not one who should be a police
officer.

Before I end this note I want to say
something on our soldier's obligations and
"enlistment oath." They took an oath to
support and defend the constitution, not the
President, Congress or ExxonMobil. They are
also required to follow orders per the
Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Now
the UCMJ is based on the Nuremberg Principles
and this means soldiers are only obligated to
follow "lawful orders." This means any
orders that are unlawful - like orders
sending them to participate in wars of
aggression in Iraq or Afghanistan - should
be resisted unless a soldier chooses to
violate his or her oath.

Earlier I referenced Justice Robert
Jackson. At the Nuremberg Trials he said
something that was an important ethical
standard that applies here too when judging
others and ourselves,

We must never forget that the record on
which we judge these defendants today is the
record on which history will judge us
tomorrow. To pass these defendants a
poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips
as well.

He also said,

If certain acts of violation of treaties
are crimes, they are crimes whether the
United States does them or whether Germany
does them, and we are not prepared to lay
down a rule of criminal conduct against
others which we would not be willing to have
invoked against us.

If only it were true. During the trials
Germans routinely had charges dropped if they
could show the Alliance did the same thing
(i.e. Karl Do:nitz), and in modern times we
routinely violate international law with
impunity.

Here are our "views" in a nutshell: We
Americans are no better than the rest and we
should be held to the same standards as the
rest, and we certainly should not be allowed
to act criminally with impunity. We do not
glorify or gloss over our actions, nor do we
worship and serve power and authority. We
reject and resist jingoism.