Crucible of the Horrible

Frank Rich argues today that Afghanistan could soon become the next Vietnam (“Obama At The Precipice,” New York Times Op-ed).

In Vietnam, our bellicose fear forged the US Army into an instrument of the devil. We raped everything. The land was raped by carpet bombing and Agent Orange. The people were massacred and raped by a policy of “burn a village to save it.” Women were raped and slain by soldiers whose conscience had been raped and slain by what they saw, what they did, and what they were told to do. And of course the culture was raped by a massive continuous banquet laid out for Death.

Everything and everyone was screwed by the Command’s sick bureaucratic mind fuck. The Domino Theory was paranoia at its apex. So much denial. Groupthink and institutionalized delusion. The atrocious means justifies the ends.

How many souls were maimed and sold to hell in this crucible of the horrible?

The moral failure will taint the USA forever. The Vietnam War hemorrhaged lies and death and corruption and macho stupidity.

It is one of the greatest indictments of modern Empire.

The CIA deserves special mention. The CIA helped sell heroin. The CIA’s Provincial Interrogation Centers tortured and killed thousands upon thousands. And then came the Phoenix Program.

What perverse abuse, worthy of evil, to use the lovely mythology of the Phoenix for a murder mill.

Most Americans will not face up, let alone apologize in any soul-searching way. They are doomed to repeat their servitude to conformist violence. To live tethered, like puppets, to a parasitic past.

“That which we do not bring to consciousness appears in our lives as fate.”

Carl Jung