In the morning of October 2, 2006, Charles Carl Roberts IV (32 years old, white-heterosexual-Christian, 6’2″, 195 lbs, married with three kids under seven) shows up uninvited at the West Nickel Mines School in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. He backs up grandpa’s GMC pickup to the front of the one-room schoolhouse, walks in and asks if anyone saw a clevis pin in the road. Receiving the negative response he was expecting, he walks out and reappears with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun to force obedience from those whose cooperation he’ll need in order to dedicate the final moments of his life to a sado-pedophiliac fantasy.

He orders the male pupils to carry lumber, hardware and other items from the back of the pickup into the schoolhouse. For an overwhelming effect of shock-and-awe, he’s also packing a 12-gauge shotgun, .30-06 bolt-action rifle, some 600 rounds of ammunition, cans of black gunpowder, a stun gun and two knives – all of which enters the schoolhouse. The teacher and her visiting mother use this opportunity to escape, running to a nearby farm to call for help. Roberts orders one of the boys to chase after them, threatening to kill everyone if they get away. They get away, yet he doesn’t kill everyone. Why? Because this scenario of unscripted violence deviates too far from the blueprint of pre-meditated violence he came to carry out. But now he knows that his fantasy is off-the-rails and on-the-clock. The police will arrive sooner than expected, and the execution of his plan will have to be compressed and curtailed.

It takes the teacher and her mother a few minutes to reach the nearby farm. After the call for help is made, the first state trooper arrives within ten minutes. In that short period of time, the man with a 9mm is able to arrange things hastily according to his fantasy. Allowing the remaining four adult women and fifteen boys to exit the schoolhouse, he orders the female pupils to line up against the chalkboard. (One girl follows her brother out with the boys; not proficient in English she didn’t understand the order to stay or be shot.) Using the lumber and hardware he came with, he seals himself in with ten girls ranging in age from six to thirteen, and binds their hands and feet. The table is set for a massacre, as armed police surround the schoolhouse and try to negotiate the release of the children.

Though he holds ten Amish girls at gunpoint in a one-room schoolhouse, the gunman himself is hostage to bigger guns outside the schoolhouse walls. His life is now acutely circumscribed. Does he come this far only to give up the gig for nothing, and ruminate for years to come behind bars why he attempted to do such a thing in the first place? Or does he try slapdash to consummate a fantasy of sado-sexual molestation with young girls, and then give ‘em all the gun and self-destruct, so as forever to avoid suffering the punishment and condemnation he will deserve – including endless time for self-reflection, which in any case a person of this caliber would scarcely be competent to undertake?

Trapped in a sealed room with this special person, the girls ask the man with a 9mm why he is doing this. The gunman says that he is angry with God, and tells his young captives to pray for him. The girls pray for him; then ask if he will pray for them. He prays for them by calling his wife on his cell-phone from inside the schoolhouse. (Amish culture prohibits the use of phones in schools and homes.) Mrs. Roberts receives the call shortly after returning home from a Bible-prayer meeting. He tells his wife that he’s not coming home, the police are here, not to worry – that he left notes for her and the kids. In the note to his wife, he connects feelings of self-hatred and hatred of God to the loss of a premature infant daughter who died shortly after birth nine years ago. The same note also refers to his having recent dreams about repeating something he did twenty years ago. Speaking to her now for the last time, he adds that he molested two female relatives twenty years ago, and he’s been dreaming about doing it again and taking revenge. (The relatives, who would have been three and four at the time, later denied ever having been molested by Roberts.) In a second call from inside the schoolhouse, he prays for the girls again by communicating to a 911 dispatcher that if the police don’t withdraw from the property in two seconds, he’ll kill all the children: “you tell them and that’s it, right now or they’re dead in two seconds!”

In an effort to distract the gunman from his agenda and to save the lives of her classmates, 13-year-old Marian Fisher speaks out: “Shoot me first,” she says, “and leave the other ones loose!” Hearing this, her younger sister Barbie, 11 years old, asks to be shot second. The words are revealing of a spiritual prodigy, and her younger sister not far behind. Collectively the ten girls are heroes of the highest order for facing down a crazed killer with extraordinary courage, calm and intelligence. And their handling of this terrifying situation heaps enormous credit on the society in which they were raised.

Tied hands-and-feet, the young girls dance circles around the man with a 9mm in the moments before the massacre commenced. Appealing first to his humanity, they ask the gunman “why?” How much honesty and compassion is needed to understand that this is a question with no valid answer in objective reality? Not much. Therefore might even a madman be persuaded to desist? A reasonable thought for anyone to have. But men of violence, greed, anger and ignorance live acutely subjective lives; and rarely, if ever, have enough honesty or compassion to understand the gross injustices they perpetrate against the world. Predictably the gunman was nonplussed by a question so simple that even children know how to answer it without any training. But not the adult with a private fantasy and a 9mm to enforce it. Not the adult who uses God reflexively with abysmal cynicism to justify the insanity of his position, while at the same time seeking sympathy from the children he is about to murder: “I am angry with God; pray for me.”

Sensing no humanity, honesty or compassion where there might have been at least a shred, Marian Fisher jujitsu-like appeals directly to his insanity. “Shoot me first,” she says, “and leave the other ones loose!” This would be amazingly courageous for an elder to say, and shows extraordinary thinking in the face of death. And it came from a 13-year-old girl. This is why Marian Fisher died an accomplished spiritual master equal to any of the longest-living spiritual masters of history. Yet I don’t mean to single her out. The act itself, being so purely selfless, suggests that Marian might not approve. All ten girls were in it together, and stayed together with one mind and supported each other throughout the ordeal. As Barbie’s quick follow-up shows (“shoot me second!”), any of them might have done the same thing. But Marian, being one of the oldest, spoke out on that fateful day, offering herself up as a sacrifice to a crazed killer in a bid to save the group. What a stunning display of true leadership and responsibility! Was Roberts sentient enough to know that a 13-year-old girl, tied hands-and-feet, had just defeated him forever in three syllables? “Shoot…me…first!”

The authorities, of course, do not withdraw from their position around the schoolhouse. Was Roberts crazy enough to think that they might? Moments after the two-second ultimatum, the gunman begins shooting the bound girls from behind at very close range. Screaming is heard from within the schoolhouse over the sound of rapid gunfire, then silence. Police crash through the windows to enter the building. The inside is gruesome and heartbreaking. All of the girls are hit with bullets, lying on the floor, wounded, bound and bleeding. Some are shot in the head, some in the body, some in multiple places, and the gunman is a suicide. According to a deputy coroner, the schoolroom was splattered with blood and glass, and bullet holes were everywhere. Five of the girls die of gunshot wounds, including Marian; and five survive, including Barbie.

A sado-pedophiliac killer with this level of rage, contempt and fire-power might easily have killed ten children, tied hands-and-feet, while shooting pointblank from behind. Yet somehow the Amish girls increased the odds of their survival from zero to fifty percent, operating under enormous pressure and with precious little time to do it in. Courageously testing both the humanity and insanity of the madman who came to kill them – as though they were two sides of the same coin; kaleidoscopic aspects of a universally flawed human brain – did these brilliant girls, working together psychologically under terrifying circumstances, somehow unsteady the hand of the shooter? Though it can never be proved, their resistance was heroic and noble, even immortal – a triumph of all that they stand for beyond the power of words to express.

After the incident, police reported no evidence of sexual molestation taking place in the schoolroom. Does this mean that the assault was not an act of sado-pedophilia? Of course not. What can be more sado-pedophiliac in nature than breaking into the lives of little girls, tying them up and then gunning them down with a semi-automatic at pointblank range? Subtract out of the story outward expressions of intent to molest – the reference in the note to his wife, the call from the schoolhouse, sexual paraphernalia found in the killer’s bag – and the assault is an act of sado-pedophilia all the same.

It was also a hate-crime, which sado-pedophilia always partakes in. But mainstream media was either too stupid or scared to report it. The Amish are white Christians of European extraction – just like the killer, right? Hardly. The Amish are very careful how they engage with the modern world because of the spectacular corrupting effects on people who do. You’ll never see an Amish kid (who’s not been excommunicated) in Uncle Sam’s army killing innocent people on the other side of the world. The Amish eschew confrontation, self-promotion, electricity and the gas-powered engine – ruling out all of Uncle Sam’s wars. They also shun insurance. If an Amish farmer loses his barn to a fire, he can’t call State Farm. Why let the greed-mongers fleece you, when you’re fully invested in and supported by real community that turns out the next day to help you rebuild what you lost? The Amish would never think of destroying the earth for its energy by practising mountain-top mining, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing or nuclear fission. Amish children learn their native tongue first and live close to the earth. If you’re a psycho who guns them down in the morning, Amish elders will forgive you in the afternoon.

The cultures of the Amish and the killer are like day and night. Living nearby, Roberts worked as a milk-truck driver, collecting milk in a tanker from dairy farmers for commercial sale. Some of the families whose children he attacked were on his milk run. No scion of the Amish, but he knew them well enough to know that they were different. Home-schooled and hailing from the dominant culture, Roberts, by breeding and default, was a fateful son of Uncle Sam, a chip off the old block, with a “Son-of-Sam” perspective on the world. “Who are these quiet freaks on Uncle Sam’s land, rejecting technology, slowing the whole world down? Making me uncomfortable in my own skin!” Did he have thoughts like these? Doesn’t matter. Proof of the Son-of-Sam perspective is in the gun. There’s a parallel between the sometime sado-pedophilia of a Charles Roberts and the perennial sado-pedophilia of Uncle Sam. The former is a microcosm of the latter. The episodic occurrence of this and similar events in American culture happens against a permanent background of US-perpetrated violence against other people’s children throughout the world.

Roberts was the son of a police officer, member of a church married therein to a pious wife, and god-worshipping (hating God is a form of worship). After the massacre, Mrs. Roberts said that her husband was not an evil person. “The man who did this today was not the Charles I’ve been married to for almost ten years. My husband was loving, supportive, thoughtful – all the things you’d always want, and more.” Roberts’ mother said, “He was an excellent family man. I had no idea anything like this was going to happen.” His maternal grandmother said, “He was a good son and a good father. I just don’t understand why he did it, why he killed those kids.” Not surprisingly, the Amish had a better read on him than his closest relatives. Not that anyone could have predicted the monstrous assault of October 2, but some of the Amish told their children not to be present when the milk-truck man came around. Why? Because the dude was visibly off.

Uncle Sam is descended from authoritarianism and an unreconstructed man of God. Because he’s many people in many places, he commits many massacres in every generation. And when he does, his family members quickly issue official statements: “This is not who we are.” “We are better than this.” “This does not represent our values.” Etc, etc. heard countless times over and over after every massacre from all of his atrocity-producing wars, so numerous as to bleed seamlessly together, one into the next, creating a cultural background of blood, gore and body parts hovering over the psychic landscape of America from Jamestown to the present. If achievements attained through murder, violence, theft and fraud are no achievements at all, then many of America’s historical accomplishments are potentially null and void. If I may echo the Amish here in a word to the wise throughout the world: don’t be present when the milk-truck man comes around. Why? Because the dude is visibly off.

Unwavering devotion to a pathological fantasy fueled by extreme selfishness, cruelty and contempt for humanity caused Roberts to behave as he did on the last day of his life; and his behavior was totally psychotic. Unwavering devotion to a bundle of pathological fantasies characterized by extreme selfishness, cruelty and contempt for humanity causes Uncle Sam to perform as he does everyday of his life at home and abroad. At the level of the state, these fantasies are expressed through a wide range of policies, foreign and domestic in spheres economic, social, political and military.

Just as Roberts left behind lunatic scribbling before embarking on his killing spree, so does Uncle Sam – volumes and volumes of classified information, because Uncle Sam does a lot of killing. Massive leaks notwithstanding, relatively few of these documents come to light while still bearing directly on current affairs. There’s a good reason for this: Uncle Sam is not well; he’s a dark and twisted figure whose thoughts are disturbing. He keeps his mind closed to scrutiny from without and to improvement from within. Which explains why the scribbling of one era reads like that of the next. Something similar to the cosmological principle applies to US foreign policy: when viewed from sufficient distance in time and space, the material appears uniformly consistent. In this case, uniformly selfish, cruel, contemptuous of humanity and psychopathic all at the same time.

Hyperbole? Consider a purple passage from Memo PPS-23, top secret in February 1948 when written by George Kennan, the first director of the newly created Policy Planning Staff in the State Department, under then-secretary of state George Marshall:

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population…In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. [1]

Conceding in the next paragraph that socialism will be a more attractive and realistic economic alternative than capitalism for many people around the world, he continues:

We should dispense with the aspiration to “be liked” or to be regarded as the repository of high-minded international altruism…We should cease to talk about vague and – for the Far East – unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. We should recognize that our influence in the Far Eastern area in the coming period is going to be primarily military and economic. [2]

The destructive fantasies embedded in this and countless other policy papers are often missed, because they’re written in pseudo-intellectual prose with thick polyurethane lacquer of phony responsibility and realism. Here’s a translation in living color of what this genteel diplomat is saying: “Holy Christ, boss, get a load of these figures! Look how fucking rich we are! The rest of the world will hate us and clamor for justice. No matter, let’s cleave to a policy of monumental global injustice. And if anyone notices, we’ll fuck ‘em up with our military if we can’t find goons on the ground to do the job for us.” This is the policy being recommended; this is the policy that was followed. But US policy-makers can’t write like that for the same reason they dress up in pinstripe when a butcher’s smock would suit them well. Policy writing is a secret language wherein death, destruction, poverty and starvation on a global scale are little more than abstractions to be discussed, planned and implemented by winks and nods.

And just for the record: the staggering crimes and vicissitudes of history explain the mind-blowing “disparity” in the middle of the twentieth century, not the genius of the American people (or lack thereof), which is much like the genius of other people (or lack thereof). But that level of honesty is anathema to empire, and Kennan would never mention it, if it occurred to him at all. But to watch him outline a foreign policy that calls for devising “a pattern of relationships” (support for puppet states and dictators) which will permit “us” (those who govern on behalf of those who own) to maintain “this position of disparity” (obscene levels of global inequality) “without positive detriment” (loss of mega profits) to “national security” (corporate interests) is disturbing to say the least, and shows how policy at the highest levels of the state is rolled out with violence, greed, hatred and hypocrisy already built in. After that, it’s the job of PR and propaganda to transform a reckless system of international anarchy into a noble, humanitarian vision of world order.

And Kennan was considered a moderate. As “the father of containment,” he had tremendous influence on foreign policy during the Cold War and beyond. In January 1950, Truman requested “a reexamination of [US] objectives in peace and war” in light of Soviet nuclear capabilities and the “loss” of China. Less than three months later, NSC-68, the mushroom cloud and master plan of Cold War policy, hit the president’s desk. Sixty-six pages of top-secret, turgid, diabolical, highly cynical and manipulative policy-writing:

“The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” “The fundamental design of those who control the Soviet Union and the international communist movement is to retain and solidify their absolute power…” “The design, therefore, calls for the complete subversion or forcible destruction of the machinery of government and structure of society in the countries of the non-Soviet world and their replacement by an apparatus and structure subservient to and controlled from the Kremlin.” [3]

“A more rapid build-up of political, economic, and military strength…than is now contemplated is the only course which is consistent with progress toward achieving our fundamental purpose.” “In the broadest terms, the ability to perform these tasks requires a build-up of military strength by the United States and its allies to a point at which the combined strength will be superior for at least these tasks…” “A program for rapidly building up strength and improving political and economic conditions will place heavy demands on our courage and intelligence; it will be costly; it will be dangerous. But half-measures will be more costly and more dangerous…” “Budgetary considerations will need to be subordinated to the stark fact that our very independence as a nation may be at stake.” [4]

“Time is short, however, and the risks of war attendant upon a decision to build up strength will steadily increase the longer we defer it.” “Our position at the center of power in the free world places a heavy responsibility upon the United States for leadership. We must organize and enlist the energies and resources of the free world in a positive program for peace which will frustrate the Kremlin design…” “The whole success of the proposed program hangs ultimately on the recognition by this Government, the American people, and all free people, that the cold war is in fact a real war in which the survival of the free world is at stake.” [5]

Perhaps not Kennan’s cup of tea in terms of tone and style, but this tragic document was a logical extension of his previous work and influence. [6] Though you wouldn’t know it from his writing, he had reservations about capitalism relying too heavily on military solutions to counter the “spread of socialism” in the world. Dean Acheson, his new boss at Department of State, and Paul Nitze, who followed him as director of Policy Planning, didn’t have those reservations. An even more virulent set of policy hacks was now in control. Outlasting his usefulness, Kennan was kicked to the attic as senior counselor, while Nitze chaired the joint committee of State, Defense and CIA personnel who produced NSC-68, calling for an increase in defense spending of 350%.

Truman flinched when he saw the budget. He, who incinerated hundreds of thousands of civilians in a barbaric display of newly-devised nuclear weaponry, had a scruple of conscience: how to justify an enormous increase in military spending to the American people in peace time? Not to worry, Mr President, Uncle Sam is a wily one. At home, McCarthyism and the Congress for Cultural Freedom were already achieving spectacular results. Overseas, a Machiavellian-US-sponsored war was haze-gray and underway in the Korean peninsula.

By late summer, the budget of NSC-68 was a warm bowl of kitten’s milk. In September 1950, Truman approved the master plan for a cold war – a real war against people everywhere resisting colonial oppression and seeking self-determination in the wake of WW2. Defense spending sky-rocketed during the Korean War and remained high afterwards. Eleven years later in a sayonara-speech to the nation, Eisenhower warned against the “grave implications” of the “military-industrial-complex.” What a curious blend of hypocrisy and cynicism from someone who waged eight years of cold war against the world with lasting implications: Iran-1953, Guatemala-1954, Syria-1956, Haiti-1959, an “Eisenhower Doctrine” for the whole Middle East, Operation Gladio in Europe, deep involvement in Indonesia and Indochina, etc, etc. “Yes indeed, America, goodbye and good luck, ’cause damn if I didn’t fuck up world for a long time to come! And by the way, watch out for the military-industrial-complex – it’s a real mother!” In the half-century since that warning, the MIC has all but cannibalized American society. US presidents must view the world through the combat-colored glasses of the national security apparatus and cleave to its path of destruction. Far from being independent-minded or free-acting agents of meaningful change, they’re pre-selected for fealty to the structure, which caters in turn to the blind, savaging forces of corporate power.

“Project for the New American Century” was a policy think-tank in DC active from 1997-2006, reappearing in 2009 after it became clear that the Obama Justice Department would not prosecute Bush-league officials for crimes against humanity. It supports “a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity,” promoting “American hegemony” and “full-spectrum dominance” over the world. In September 2000, PNAC published a report called ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New American Century’. Simon-Bar-Sinister overtones of the “Kremlin design” air-brushed away, the 76-page document is a policy doppelganger of NSC-68 fifty years later:

“America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces.” “Develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for US power projection around the world.” “Control the new international commons of space and cyberspace, and pave the way for the creation of a new military service – US Space Forces – with the mission of space control.” “If an American peace is to be maintained, and expanded, it must have a secure foundation on unquestioned US military preeminence.” [7]

“US nuclear superiority is nothing to be ashamed of; rather, it will be an essential element in preserving American leadership in a more complex and chaotic world.” “Anything less than a clear two-war capacity threatens to devolve into a no-war strategy.” “The preponderance of American power is so great and its global interests so wide that it cannot pretend to be indifferent to the political outcome in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf or even when it deploys forces in Africa.” “Across the globe, the trend is for a larger US security perimeter, bringing with it new kinds of missions.” [8]

“Suffice it to say that an expanded American security perimeter…will not come cheap.” “Since today’s peace is the unique product of American preeminence, a failure to preserve that preeminence allows others an opportunity to shape the world in ways antithetical to American interests and principles.” “This expanding perimeter argues strongly for new overseas bases and forward operating locations to facilitate American political and military operations around the world.” “Keeping the American peace requires the US military to undertake a broad array of missions today and rise to very different challenges tomorrow, but there can be no retreat from these missions without compromising American leadership and the benevolent order it secures.” [9]

This tragic document informed eight years of preeminent policy disasters under Bush-Cheney and continuing under Obama. Many of those associated with PNAC held top-level positions in the Bush Administration. Here again, because the language of the writing dissociates from and conceals the effects of the policy, many readers will miss the wanton fantasies of violence and destruction that lie beneath. Preeminence! Leadership! Responsibility! “Yes, yes, yes – that’s what America is!” But it’s all a façade. Tear away the mask, and you’ll find a government of corporate cowards screaming for a policy of monumental global injustice from here to eternity, because that’s how little boys like them pretend to be men. There’s nothing preeminent, leader-like or responsible about any people calling for that kind of world.

The “American peace” is a state of permanent global war. And the “American security perimeter” runs through every country on earth including outer space. For Americans to feel safe in foreclosed homes, waxing sick, ignorant and jaded on GE food, news and entertainment, preyed upon by a thousand corporate forces, addicted to as many vices, dying of meaningless work with little or no healthcare and retirement, and no viable education for their kids, they must permanently bankrupt their lives and communities, so that preeminent US military forces can dominate the entire planet and power-project all the way to the moon. And nobody laughs at this spectacle? At the death-worshiping, corpse-eating, zombie culture that America has become! God rest ye merry, fuck-heads! Where’s your sense of humor? Laugh for Christ-sake! Laugh! If only America could laugh a big genuine laugh, not downsized, outsourced or corporatized, and keep it real and keep it going for a hundred years, it could laugh these imbeciles out of power every time. And that really would be a project for a new American century.

The psychopathic fantasies of people like Roberts and Uncle Sam come from the same place in the human soul, and are forced upon the world in the same way – through the barrel of a gun. Roberts and Uncle Sam are alter egos. What happens when Uncle Sam in the persona of truck-driver delivering commercial service to people with “antithetical ways” in Nickel Mines is possessed by the fantasy of controlling and raping their children? That’s an easy one. He breaks into their schoolhouse and blows them away. What happens when Uncle Sam in the persona of POTUS delivering foreign policy to people around the world with “antithetical ways” is possessed by the fantasy of controlling and raping their land and resources on behalf of corporate America? That’s an easy one. He breaks into their country and blows them away – by full-on invasion, aerial attack or rented government of goons.

Uncle Sam would like you to think that he’s the police outside the schoolhouse trying to save the children from the psycho inside. That’s the propaganda. But Uncle Sam is the psycho inside. The psycho inside the national character of corporate government; the psycho who breaks into countries of other people all over the world anywhere, anytime. Every violation of other people’s sovereignty (proxy wars, invasions, coups, killer drones, impossible loans, austerity bailouts, bankrolled dictators, client states and death squads) doubles as an act of sado-pedophilia, because smashing up society, as these things do, exposes children in large numbers to murder, maiming, rape, kidnap, torture, hunger, disease, exploitation, molestation, prostitution.

Every time Uncle Sam consummates his fantasy with guns, goons or rotten finance, he dies that much more of himself. How much time he has left is unclear. His hulking frame could collapse to the ground tomorrow. He could also stalk the earth as a living-dead person indefinitely. Roberts knew that his Amish policy plan would never work. He knew that once he broke into the school, he would never get out alive. The entire project was criminal from beginning to end. But he couldn’t stop himself. Why? Because he was fully possessed by the fantasy, and could not defend against it. Uncle Sam’s 24-hour culture of God, guns, corn, porn and corporate indoc is a full-spectrum destroyer, from truck drivers to presidents, gauze-wrapping the brain so tight in Son-of-Sam perspectives that no one can ever know the psycho he’s become.

In the scribbled notes to his kids, Roberts regrets that he’ll not be around to watch them grow up. Think what this policy hack is saying, “Sorry kids, I’d like to stick around, help out and watch you grow up, but I’ll be massacring Amish schoolgirls today in bonnets and pinafores, and then shooting myself in the head. “Gee, Daddy, why is that?” “Well, sonny, not that you’d understand, but I’m dispensing with high-minded altruism and dealing in straight power concepts. That’s what little boys do when they have fantasies they can’t control and want the world to oblige. You’ll understand when you’re a man.”

Uncle Sam knows that his foreign policy plans will never work. He knows that every time he breaks into a country, a large part of him will never get out alive, because the entire project is criminal from beginning to end. But he can’t stop himself. Why? Because he’s fully possessed by the fantasy that he can rape and pillage the world. Every top secret memo of the Kennan variety is a suicide note to the nation, “Sorry, citizens, I’d like to stick around and assist with education, healthcare, green energy and good jobs, and watch y’all develop into something great, but I’ll be massacring the people of Iraq today and destroying their country for the next ten years. After that, I’ll be assassinating your future for the next seven generations in Af-Pak, Iran, Libya, Yemen, you-name-it.” “Gee, Uncle Sam, why is that?” “No reason really. Guess you could say I’m dispensing with high-minded altruism and dealing in straight power concepts. That’s what little boys do when they have fantasies they can’t control and want the world to oblige. If you were me, you’d understand.”

Acting out little-boy fantasies on a global scale, those in government and corporate positions who kill wholesale with the policy gun are an existential threat to human and non-human life. How many children (just counting children) has Uncle Sam killed, maimed, raped and terrorized with his own hands and through the agency of others worldwide from Korea and Vietnam to Af-Pak and beyond in the persona of POTUS, Pentagon, State Dept, CIA, NSC, PNAC, defense and corporate contractors, on and on, until the entire death machine that drives the US economy is assembled, so that he who is Uncle Sam can preside over a system of monumental global injustice without positive detriment to national security? Nobody knows. It’s not nice to track the ruination of Earth’s children, especially when the national character and economy of America is to blame. But you can be sure that that number is in the millions and millions.

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Endnotes

1. George Kennan, ‘Review of Current Trends, US Foreign Policy, Policy Planning Staff, PPS 23. Top Secret’, Published in Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. 1, 1948, 509-529. Declassified Jun 1974. Excerpt from section VII.

2. Kennan ‘Review of Current’.

3. ‘National Security Council Directive, NSC 68. Top Secret’, A Report to the President Pursuant to the President’s Directive of Jan 31, 1950. Delivered Apr 7, 1950. Declassified Feb 1975. Three quotes from pages 4, 6, 6.

4. NSC 68, four quotes from pages 54, 55, 56, 56.

5. NSC 68, three quotes from pages. 59, 63, 65.

6. Especially relevant to creating a policy climate for NSC-68 was Kennan’s Long Telegram of 1946 and its publication the following year in revised form as The Sources of Soviet Conduct in Foreign Affairs.

7. ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century’, A Report of the Project for the New American Century, Sept 2000. Project Co-Chairmen: Donald Kagan and Gary Schmitt. Principal Author: Thomas Donnelly, four quotes from pp. iv, v, v, 4.

8. ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’, four quotes from pp. 8, 9, 11, 14.

9. ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses’, four quotes from pp. 69, 73, 74, 75-76.

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Little Big Pine: citizen, patriot, poet; may be reached at littlebigpine@gmail.com.

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