The Treacherous Patriot

Cross posted from Roger Gardners RADARSITE.

A note from Radarsite:

Warning: The following article is unfair and unbalanced.

If you are looking for a gentlemanly debate on the morality of America, or on the moral justification of American national or foreign policy you should probably stop right here. There are a great number of sites out there that will be more than happy to accomodate you. But this isn’t one of them.

Our mission here is simple, clear and unequivocal: we support our great nation. This means that whatever we do here on these pages is done to promote the cause of American victory in this great Clash of Civilizations which we call the Global War on Terror. We love our country. We do not devote all of our talents and energies seeking to undermine her credibility. We do not seek to discredit, dishonor or embarrass her. We will do everything in our power to honor and strengthen her.

Our obvious enemies, the blood-soaked Islamists, the relentless Communists, and this world’s brutal petty potentates are generally clear and open in their statements of hatred; there is little that is ambiguous about their opinions of us, or their intentions toward us. Their mission, too, is simple, clear and unequivocal: they wish to destroy us or subjugate us.

But we have other, perhaps even more dangerous enemies, enemies who live amongst us; indeed they are us. They are that part of us who hates us. They are the Treacherous Patriots. You know who they are. They are our friendly next door neighbors and our good-hearted relatives, they are are children’s school teacher or perhaps the young girl at the supermarket checkout counter.

Above all, they will tell you, they are all patriotic Americans, loyal Americans who sincerely believe that somehow by burning our flag they will save our country. They eagerly remind us daily of our supposed misdeeds, our long, self-centered, ruthless history of oppression of the weak and powerless of this world. They love America so much that they are willing to see us defeated in order to change our misbegotten ways. They thoroughly believe in their mission, too; they thoroughly believe that they know better. You see, they have the inside scoop. They’ve read the articles and listened to their professors. They watch tv and they know the score. They will not be misled by war-mongering racists or xenophobic right-wing Christian zealots.

To support their bleak assessment of America they patiently sift through the detritus of our shameful history, searching for the incontrovertible evidence of our manifest crimes. They are convinced that the only way to heal these grievous self-inflicted wounds is to heed the admonishments of our enemies. We must, they say, be willing to learn from our adversaries, and, most importantly, we must be willing to learn from our own past mistakes. That great long litany of dreadful mistakes which comprise the awful history or this flawed nation. We must learn from the unmitigated and unnecessary horrors of our Hiroshimas and Nagasakis, from our murderous Vietnams and Kent States. We must learn from our horrific ethnic cleansing of our noble Native Americans and the brutal enslavement and continuing subjugation of our down-trodden African-Americans.

Perhaps, they are willing to concede, we were noble once, perhaps long ago, but not lately. Certainly not now. Whatever we started out to be, somewhere along the way we lost our bearings and now we have become the enemy of the world. The oppressor of mankind. The Great Satan.

They are proud of their enlightenment and eager to share it with us. Here is one of them now:

I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?

The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty. Beyond being wrong, it just isn’t very smart. We all agree that slavery in this country was wrong; as was the decimation of the Native American populations. We all agree that the Holocaust and several other acts of genocide in the twentieth century were wrong. So when will we finally admit that American military intervention in the Middle East is wrong as well?

So, there you have it. The voice of the Treacherous Patriot. This is their grave message to America: You were wrong when you woke up in the morning, and it’s been going downhill since then. Not quite hopeless, though, not quite yet. There’s still time to change our ways, still time to heed their dire warnings. There’s still November. There’s still that Change we can believe in.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot, I will not tolerate this pompous and ignorant bulls**t any longer. I will ignore it, I will delete it, but I will not debate it. I will no longer just agree to disagree with them. I will no longer allow these saboteurs a place at my table. This is the enemy within. This is the deliberate and shameless perfidy of the Treacherous Patriot.