America & Israel: Avatars of Goodness or Followers of Tojo
In the most recent attack on Iran, America and Israel have adopted the tactics of Imperial Japan in its attack on Pearl Harbor
By
David Gottfried
Americans and Israelis have, in the past, often been the good guys. However, sometimes one is so certain that one is good and golden that one doesn’t realize how far one has tumbled down from one’s fine moral perch and become just another overwhelmingly evil son of a bitch.
Russia thought it was engaged in a moral crusade to rid the world of victimizing bankers and merchants, and knowing that it had G-d on its side, it killed whomever it felt like killing. Germany genuinely thought it was defending European Christendom, and it slaughtered Jesus millions of times over. England and France thought it was fighting to spread liberty and democracy, and it wrought colonial degradation and impoverishment all over the globe.
As nations morph into monstrosities, they become numb to the myriad changes in the strategies they employ. When America entered World War Two, she did it like a morally upright, New England Square, and Roosevelt thundered that we would avenge December 7, “a day which will live infamy.” America was the noble antithesis of Imperial Japan. America entered the war with a stalwart and stirring declaration of war. Japan, by contrast, was deceit personified; it sent negotiators to the U.S. to allay our fears of aggression, sweet-talked us, and cast a thousand lying smiles to deflect our attention from the armada bearing down on Pearl Harbor.
And Israel and America are following the road map of Imperial Japan.
Just as Japan went on a negotiating offensive to negate our military preparedness, Trump opened negotiations with Iran to put them to sleep with lies of peace and brotherhood. Iran thought that neither Israel nor America would attack, it let its guard down, and it was harmed, just as America had been grievously harmed by the Japanese.
Nuclear weapons are awful things but sometimes being in a world in which only one side has a nuclear weapon is worse. In the Vietnam War, the United States played the part of the Great Satan of the Sixties because it murdered about 2 million civilians in Indochina. If Communist North Vietnam had had a nuclear weapon, the war would have ended much sooner and millions of lives would have been saved.
As Paul Simon put it in an American Tune, we can’t be forever blessed, and we are not forever good. Just as the Judea of David and Solomon became a crass colonial outpost of Rome and in many ways an ally of Rome, Israel has been in bed with men like Trump for so long she has developed the stench and mien of a Prussian junker saluting Kaiser Wilhelm in 1914.
Are we at the dire crossroads of a new 1914.
Hey David, Your email stopped me in my tracks. I agree 100%. Why is the free press not shouting this from the top of their steel towers, theres a deep and disturbing shift in both America and Israel that seems to have gone unnoticed by those who still believe wer automatically on the side of good simply by virtue of who we are. That assumption that moral superiority is inherited rather than earned has led both countries to dangerously confuse strength with righteousness and domination with destiny. Ur comparison to Imperial Japan is chilling, and unfortunately, fitting. Like Japan then, we cloak aggression in diplomacy, wrapping our military ambitions in the language of peace and protection. And like you mentioned, it's all too easy to forget how moral certainty can become a weapon more destructive than any bomb. Another example that comes to mind is the US involvement in the 1953 coup in Iran. We overthrew a democratically elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, because he dared to nationalize Irans oil. Under the pretense of protecting democracy n stability, we then installed the Shah who ruled w brutality n corruption for decades. That single arrogant move destabilized n entire region n planted the seeds of resentment that wer still harvesting in the form of hostility in the region today. I'm not saying weve never been good, it's that we've stopped questioning our goodness and as a result we've lost it.
I still deeply believe we can find our way back. Humility n compassion, not for abstract causes but for the human beings affected by our actions would be a good 1st step that could light a path back to goodness. Let's hope this is not the beginnings of a 3rd world war...