Making the world safe for hypocrisy

Few things irk me more than hearing people proclaim America as the land of freedom, of opportunity, model democracy and bastion of humanitarianism. Needless to say, the past two years haven't exactly been chipper times for me...

Everywhere I look on these shores, red, white and blue blind the eyes.

Stars and stripes pollute the landscape the way graffiti dominates an urban alleyway. A mushroom cloud of mindless patriotism explodes overhead, raining toxic fallout. Its poison taints the earth of my citizenship, seeping into the water table, contaminating the rivers that sustain my compatriots. All around, the sludge encroaches. Always waxing. Never waning.

Despair drives me to howl at the top of my lungs, warning of the cancer preying on the now-diseased locus. Yet my cries resonate as silence. Worse still, the alarms I sound fall silent, the deadly agent snuffing out the cure before its antibodies can kill the killer. Pestilence perseveres. Cancer marches on. From the stricken nation-organ at its root, it infects the surrounding cells. With the lifeblood of the world-body the fatal contagion courses through the arteries. Salvation only in global suicide. Leaving hope.

That's how I feel when I look at the world today. More accurately, it's the feeling inculcated in my bones every day as I observe the country of my birth proceeding apace in its apocalyptic program, hell-bent on leading the world into a hell from which there is no return.

It's a frustration more metaphysical than material. Small tokens of success -- decent job, modest wealth, picket fence -- tempt with their empty promises of escape. But it's all fleeting, intangible, unsatisfying. A lie. Collaboration always necessitates succumbing to the lie. Yielding to its vagaries, relenting to its moods.

Denying the lie's existence = Denying one's own existence.

For millions of my countrymen, the lie doesn't exist.

"War is peace.
Slavery is freedom.
Ignorance is strength."

They believe it just as wholeheartedly as they believe in the infallibility of their man-gods, the elite that feeds them the lie. From it they derive sustenance, and in turn propagate its seed. Not a weed. A cancer. Spreading across the horizon. Far and wide discovering an army of unsuspecting and willing carriers. Vectors of disease, dispatched from body to body. Armies massed like continent-sized tumors, hemorrhaging their mother orb.

Propagandists on the idiot box hawk the lie. "The U.S.-appointed council that replaced the tyrant by destroying existing infrastructure, arresting the development of civil society and bolstering tribalism has satisfied all preconditions for Iraqi democracy, we're happy to report." Beaming, they proclaim that cancer cures cancer. The cradle of civilization now wholly uncivilized.

"Mister anchor, assure me
That Baghdad is burning
Your voice it is so soothing
That cunning mantra of killing"

Humanitarianism means making Iraq safe for imperialism. The cancer spreads, leading to sweetheart deals on pillaging Iraqi oil reserves. This plunder, this new colonialism, this is what "democracy" looks like. The neighbors could stand to learn a thing or two.

Cancer must move on. The Iraq-organ worked well. More than a decade it sustained the disease. But now the tumor begins to rupture, threatening explosion. New cells must be formed. Cells in nearby nation-organs. And cells elsewhere. Saudi Arabia. Yemen. Pakistan. Jakarta. Hamburg. Buffalo. San Diego. Pathogens fan out. Geometric progression progresses. The hosts are always more promising on the other side of the fence.

Iran-organ waits uneasily next door. Cancer targets it, fearing its development of a powerful antibody: democracy. This supposed cure lurks as a "weapon of mass destruction" for the cancer. Democracy resists the pathogens of imperialism. Iranian democracy will not tolerate the erection of an oil artery through this organ. The organ must be attacked.

Meanwhile, far away on the shores of West Africa, a small nation devours itself.

For nearly two centuries, the people of Liberia have viewed America as a beacon of liberty and guarantor of its freedom. But freedom comes under attack. A bloody civil war imperils the entire population of this country. Despair and the grim shadow of death overwhelm the civilian population. Facing starvation, they beg and plead for U.S. intervention to stop the bloodshed. No avail. Their entreaties fall on deaf ears. Liberia has no oil wealth. It holds little strategic value for the great American colossus. You can go to hell, Liberia. Go on, kill yourselves. We haven't got the time to tend to your petty squabbles. Can't you see there's oil in them thar Persian Gulf?

A beacon of hope. American Marines in sight. Monrovia, the Liberian capital, under siege, desperately needs relief. U.S. troops can put an end to this all. Just a few soldiers would halt the conflict and allow the war-torn city to breathe, perchance to heal. Seven American Marines touch down inside the U.S. embassy compound. They evacuate the diplomatic corps and embassy personnel. In the words of the Great Liberator, they will only protect Americans and American interests. No oil means no interest. Mister President will brook no humanitarianism. Democracy doesn't matter here. False hope is a cruel bitch.

Oil is democracy
Imperialism is humanitarianism.

Lest we forget,

War is hell.