The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.

Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.

But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

http://www.counterpunch.org/pinter12072005.html

Posted by: HaroldPinter at December 9, 2005 12:29 AM

What is this drivel, Harold? Granted I stopped reading after you wrote "The truth..."

Posted by: KRS at December 9, 2005 2:14 AM

Wow.

Well said, HaroldPinter.
However, I gravely doubt that many other people will read that colossal comment from beginning to end, which will undercut its intended effect, and I also noticed quite a few factual errors, which also serve to undercut its effectiveness.

You may wish to try again with the poem 'Death', as in its present form it's little better than doggerel.

Here are some examples of good poetry:

This was a submission for the Vlasic pickle poetry contest:

Sweet Pickles

I like Vlasic Sweet Gherkins pickles,/ But the window in the break room scares me./ Well, not the window so much as the clock tower/ That sits a couple blocks away.

It looks directly into our break room/ And I can’t help thinking about Charles Whitman;/ Imagining that one of these days/ There will be a suicidal assassin up there.

I can see myself taking a jar of pickles/ Out of the staff refrigerator and then:/ A flash of light from the tower, the window,/ breaking,/ The jar falling slow-motion, Hollywood style, and shattering on the floor.

When I was eight I realized that people/ Could see into the windows of our house./ For months I played a game I called “window level,”/ Crawling under with windows to avoid being seen.

I want to play window level now but I know/ That my coworkers would think it not a little odd./ So I continue to walk by the window, braced for the impact/ Of a high-powered rifle’s sniper bullet.

~ Siddhartha Herdegen

And:

The Road from Baghdad to Taji

I see fewer contemporary dwellings/ And more traditional mud-stuccoed homes./ Most of the newer buildings damaged,/ And some repaired with whatever they had;

Holes in walls filled with stacks of fieldstone/ Or mismatched bricks, in a careless manner;/ Roofs with plywood patches held down by rocks,/ Or corrugated tin hastily applied.

A large edifice, perhaps once a shopping mall,/ Is now a squalid squatter’s mansion./ People look up from their pathetic lives,/ Staring at us with envy?/ Fear?/ Disinterest?/ Loathing?/ Their donkey carts loaded down with chattel and junk.

Along the road a tanker truck has parked,/ Dispensing fuel. An impromptu gas station/ On a patch of dust and failing asphalt./ An apparently random location,/ No building,/ No sign,/ No pumps./ Just a truck and a line of vehicles, waiting.

A tired, impassive and dirty man,/ Custodian of the precious juice,/ Wearily pumps the tank’s contents/ Into ancient Opels,/ Nissans,/ Mercedes/ And a Massey-Ferguson,/ A tractor that has seen much better days.

Black market gas stations are prohibited,/ And ephemeral as the Hessian fly,/ But also required where authorized channels/ Are incapable of meeting the demand.

They are like brittle, gold summer grass;/ Inflamed emotions can spark an instant riot./ Iraqi police stand nearby to keep the peace,/ Strangely sanctioning the illegal affair.

“Combustible motion lotion—the life-blood of society,”/ Says Williams over the noise of the Humvee/ And the wind rushing in through the gunner’s turret./ I wonder absently where he heard that,/ A news broadcast?/ A school teacher?/ A respected older brother?/ He doesn’t seem the intellectual type.

He seems more the type to proclaim,/ “We kill ‘em all and let God sort them out.”/ Then smile a toothy, nescient grin./ He’s a taut-bellied boy/ With an eagle,/ Globe and anchor,/ Tattoo on his arm./ And although he is scarcely half my age,

We share an immediate connection./ A bond common to those caught in this war;/ Not merely that he would give his life for mine,/ And that I willingly do the same for him,/ But that today/ We may both die/ For no one in particular./ A fact neither of us want to admit.

His aphorism, however arrived at,/ May very well be the truth and/ The scarcity of the ‘lotion’ indicate/ Their uncertain hold on civilization.

While this land is rich in crude,/ It can’t seem to make enough petrol/ To meet their own population’s needs;/ Its burdened supply chain tragically flawed.

We roll deeper into the suburbs/ Where the impoverished fields are covered/ With dirty refuse and dirty dirt./ Where is the greenery?/ The wide streets?/ The clean lines?/ The cultured architecture?/ That we so admired in lofty Baghdad.

Makeshift homes dot the de facto landfill,/ Made from whatever scraps are available/ And considered suitable for building./ Tarps and blankets strung from pole to pole/ Or hut to ground./ Intermittent shade/ As they flap in the wind,/ Their ends frayed like their pitiful inhabitants.

Two boys dance with a half-dead soccer ball/ Which rolls oddly across the lumpy ground./ Their sister helps mother hang the laundry,/ And father sorts through the garbage;/ Twisted metal,/ Broken TVs,/ Pieces of discarded furniture,/ Looking for anything of value.

Everywhere is litter and debris,/ Pushed brusquely to the side of the road/ By wind or inertia, piling up/ Along fence lines and next to houses.

What catches my attention is/ The waving of discarded plastic bags;/ Scattered across the fallow land,/ From aged, worn out trees and old barbed wire.

These shopping sacks, tossed carelessly,/ Inflate in the wind and are bluntly blown/ Till they get snagged around some jagged point./ A kaleidoscope of colors; pale red,/ Orange, dirty white,/ Soft blue, light green,/ Yellow, waving dusty and drab,/ Tugged by the breeze like a child’s stranded balloon.

Two old men in keffiyeh and robes/ Walking patiently hand-in-hand,/ Seem not to notice that they’re stepping/ Through a scattered accumulation of/ Discarded newspaper,/ Crushed soda cans,/ And torn food wrappers,/ Or see the pied display of bags around,

So incongruously festive cast against/ The broken countryside before me./ Like a girl in a khimar and Hello Kitty shirt./ A bearded man throws up his hands/ In anger,/ In joy,/ In despair./ And three birds take flight from a Dayri tree.

~ LT "Buck", USN

Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States' actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.

That's exactly backwards.
The U.S. supported despicable people throughout the world because blocking and defeating the Soviet Union was the highest priority.

The fact that you believe that the Soviet Union was acting for the good of the world, by constraining the EEEEEEvil United States' naked grab for world domination, really says all that is necessary about your worldview, your intentions, and indeed, your level of knowledge.
(But I'll say more anyhow).

The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. [...]
The Sandinistas weren't perfect...

Really ?
Who wudda thunk ?

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. [...] It's a winner...

Well, thanks.
Always nice to be recognized as clever, a winner, and "the greatest".

This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

No other nation has prisons ?
Are you cognizant of the meaning of "gulag" ?
Since you take issue with prisons extending across the U.S., does that mean that you'd like to see one vast prison facility housing all of America's criminals ?
Perhaps we could locate it near (or in) Yucca Mountain.

There ARE NOT "40 million" Americans living below the poverty line, but that's a quibble, just an example of how you play fast and loose with the facts.
The bigger issue is that "the poverty level" is SYMBOLIC, a statistic intended to allow us to crudely measure the number of people who need some help.
It doesn't actually measure THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING IN POVERTY, since the statistic doesn't take into account aid like subsidized housing, free medical care, food assistance, donated furniture or clothing, or other subsidies or cash payments.
Also, the measure captures a lot of people who are CURRENTLY poor, but who have bright futures ahead of them - starving students, new immigrants, and the like.

The United States no longer [...] sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. [...]

Largely because they are impotent and irrelevant. If they weren't, then we'd not ignore them.
By the way, are you IN FAVOR of the U.S. being "reticent or even devious" ?
Isn't America putting her cards on the table a good thing ?

Look at Guantanamo Bay. [...] This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what's called the 'international community'. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be 'the leader of the free world'.

Not just declares, but ACTS AS.
If any other nation or group of nations wanted the role, and could fill it, then the U.S. wouldn't have to be the de facto leader of the free world. In part, the mantle is thrust upon us.

The fact that Guantanamo is not only tolerated by the international community, but also that many nations have allowed America to operate Guantanamo-like "stealth prisons" within their borders, is a pretty good indication that not only does the international community recognize that America is doing something necessary, they also prefer that America do the heavy lifting, i.e., be the "leader of the free world".

Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? [...] At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture.

Um, yeah, force-feeding reasonable amounts of nutrients to suicidal terrorists is "torture".
Way to render a useful word meaningless.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'.

You mean we've brought force-feeding to Iraq ?

The fact that you think that AMERICA introduced the Iraqi people to torture and bombs is an excellent example of how limited is your knowledge of the world.

The Iraqi people are about to hold their third binding national elections in a year - most people around the world call that "democracy".
Since that kind of thing didn't occur under Saddam, then America MUST have brought "democracy to the Middle East" - with the caveat that (listen closely, you'll learn something) Israel is in the Middle East, and they've been a democracy for many decades.

Let's say instead that America brought democracy to the ARAB Middle East - including Lebanon and Egypt, indirectly, and possibly to Lybia, Kuwait, and Arabia, as well, eventually.

At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began.

Well, no.

Maybe 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been accidentally killed by American ordnance from March '03 until now, FAR fewer than the 35,000 innocent Iraqi civilians that were being killed PER YEAR under the UN sanctions.

So really, we're up at least 60,000 lives.
Yeay us !!

Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. 'A grateful child,' said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. 'When do I get my arms back?' he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn't holding him in his arms...

Tragic, but completely avoidable.
All Saddam had to do was get rid of his WMD in '92, as he agreed to do, and NONE of this would have happened.
No blown up kids, no women being ripped to shreds in the market by suicide bombers, no 2,100 dead American elite, no thousands of mutilated American service members, missing one or more limbs, no 500,000 Iraqis dead of various deprivations from the UN sactions...

I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as 'full spectrum dominance' [meaning] control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.

Which simply makes official policy out of the global reality.
Who but the U.S. controls the seas and the air ?
Who but the U.S. controls space ?
Has anyone else BUT the U.S. sent a probe out of our solar system, landed humans on the Earth's Moon (multiple times), or operated not one but TWO Mars-crawling probes ?

The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters.

Hooah !!

Peace through superior firepower, as they say. It's worked for over fifty years now.

Besides, you "forgot" to mention that since 2000 we've REDUCED the number of launch vehicles and warheads we operate and maintain.
An oversight like that is somewhat "infantile", wouldn't you agree ?

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 9, 2005 4:03 AM

Like Chomsky, Harold isn't wrong as to facts but as to analysis. America does reserve the right to kill, ignore international law and tamper with sovereignty in pursuit of its ideals. That's who we are and why we're the last best hope on Earth.

Posted by: oj at December 9, 2005 7:33 AM

Mr. Herdegen:
That was great. I was just going to inform Mr. Pinter how much I hated studying his plays in college and how much I look forward to urinating on his grave but yours was much better than that.

Posted by: Bryan at December 9, 2005 8:19 AM

May I just add to your magnificent tour de force that with people like you on our side, how can we lose?

Posted by: erp at December 9, 2005 12:13 PM