The devastation the United States inflicted upon Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the use of napalm and Agent Orange, and the employment of new bombs which sprayed darts inside people’s bodies and finally wrenched their guts out was a remorseless, savage, systematic course of destruction, which, however, failed to destroy the spirit of the Vietnamese people. When the United States was defeated, it at once set out to starve the country by way of trade embargo.

The United States invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965, Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1990, and destabilized and brought down the democratically elected governments of Guatemala, Chile, Greece, and Haiti—all acts entirely outside the parameters of international law.

It has given and still gives total support to the Turkish government’s campaign of genocide against the Kurdish people. It describes the Kurdish resistance forces in Turkey as “terrorists” whereas it referred to its own vicious Contra force in Nicaragua as “freedom fighters.” Its “covert” action against Nicaragua was declared by the International Court of Justice in The Hague to be in clear breach of international law.

Over the last five years the UN has passed five resolutions with overwhelming majorities demanding that the United States stop its embargo on Cuba. The United States has ignored all of them. All UN resolutions criticizing Israel have been ignored, not only by Israel but also by the United States, which turns a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear capability and shrugs off Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

The United States possesses of course quite a handy nuclear capability itself. I would say it outstrips Saddam’s ability to kill “every man, woman, and child on earth” by quite a few miles. If that wasn’t enough, it also has substantial chemical arsenals and has recently rejected two UN inspectors, one Cuban and one Iranian. It also reserves the right to deny access to certain “national security” zones. They are closed to inspection as “inspection may pose a threat to the national security interests of the United States.”

Isn’t Saddam Hussein saying something like that?

George Kennan, head of the U.S. State Department, setting out the ground rules for U.S. foreign policy in a “top secret” internal document in 1948, said, “We will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of 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 hampered by idealistic slogans the better.” Kennan was an unusual man. He told the truth.

I’m sure you would agree that historical perspective is of the first importance and that a proper detachment is a crucial obligation which devolves upon leaders of men.

Anyway, this is your ally, with whom you are locked in a moral embrace.