Reply #17: Some questions aren't permitted to be asked... [View All]

... because if they are, they challenge false assumptions under which a majority of people live.

For the vast majority of Americans, and especially for those who hold high office, the United States is the cowboy with the white hat, and anyone against us is the outlaw. Likewise, the presence of US troops is for the purpose of bringing peace, and those troops would never engage in (or encourage) actions that are an affront to basic human decency.

Now, there are those among us who don't buy into these assumptions. We realize that the United States is not the "good guy", but rather a nation controlled by a ruling class that operates in the interest of that ruling class. US troops are not used to "bring peace", but rather to "kill people and break shit," to quote David Hackworth. Likewise, US troops are human beings just like anyone else -- and are capable of engaging in systematic violations of human rights.

But the people you just mentioned are by and large members of the ruling class or their sycophants. They cannot engage in such impartial analysis of reality. They must cling to their false assumptions as a benchmark for all their subsequent conclusions in order to help buttress the status quo.