Is Violence Who We Are?

Let me begin by saying I like our secretary of state.

Secretary Clinton is an impressive, and, I believe, well-intended person. 

Now, let me ask a rhetorical question. How in god’s name can anyone be "shocked" by the recent mass murders of sixteen Afghans, six of them children, by a U.S. soldier? Moreover, how can a secretary of state — how can an educated adult, even — find this crime "inexplicable?"

When Hillary was asked to comment she said that, "This is not us," and that the news was shocking. The President later made a similar remark. My question is simple: Really?

Some highlights … or lowlights of the history of US conflicts and wars:

• The Trail of Tears in the mid-eighteen hundreds: 5,000 Native Americans die as President Andrew Jackson forces them out of Appalachia to what is now Oklahoma during a severe winter. 
• Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890: 150 Lakota men, women and children slaughtered in a hail of gunfire by US Troops. 
• 13,000 prisoners died in Andersonville during the 14 months that Civil War Prison existed, mostly from disease, malnutrition, overcrowding and exposure to the elements. 
• In WWI, around 7 million civilians died. 
• The bombing of cities and villages by the United States and Britain during WWII. The firebombing of Dresden — a minimum of 25,000 dead. The policy of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror is clearly indicated in quotes from various military and civilian leaders relative to that bombing.
• Hiroshima and Nagasaki should need no further statement. Ninety-thousand to 166,000people died in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 in Nagasaki with about half of the deaths occurring the first day. These attacks followed a firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities. 
• Many smaller known massacres. Commenting on the Biscari massacre of 50 to 75 Italians during World War General Patton noted in his journal: "I told Bradley that it was probably an exaggeration, but in any case to tell the officer to certify that the dead men were snipers or had attempted to escape or something, as it would make a stink in the press and also would make the civilians mad. Anyhow, they are dead, so nothing can be done about it."
• The mutilation of the Japanese war dead, the taking of war trophies — skulls, teeth, ears and other body parts collected — was common practice in WWII. Bones of the dead were often made into utilitarian objects and kept as souvenirs.
• During the Korean War, in the No Gun Ri massacre, U.S. soldiers strafed 50 to 150 civilians. 
• The Vietnam War included the use of Agent Orange: We know the effect on our troops and can infer that civilians inhaling this Monsanto and Dow herbicide were also similarly affected. Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.
• In the infamous My Lai Massacre, 347 and 504 unarmed civilians were slaughtered. 
• Operation Speedy Express in Vietnam with an amazing 272 to 1 kill ratio, apparently involved outright murder.
• The highly decorated Tiger Forces were involved in war crimes that included: the routine torture and execution of prisoners, the routine practice of intentionally killing unarmed Vietnamese villagers, the routine practice of cutting off and collecting the ears of victims, the practice of wearing necklaces composed of human ears, the practice of cutting off and collecting the scalps of victims incidents where soldiers would plant weapons on murdered Vietnamese villagers,an incident where a soldier killed a baby and cut off his or her head after the baby's mother was killed 
• CIA's Saigon station chief Peer DeSilva — commenting on other practices noted, "... the use of the insertion of the 6-inch dowel into the canal of one of my detainee's ears, and the tapping through the brain until dead ..."
• U.S. support of regimes under which blatant atrocities took place. U.S. policy in South America (Kissinger) during the Dirty War in Argentina, during which time approximately 30,000 civilians were tortured and put to death with the knowledge of our State Department. 

The list is cursory. I excluded much that was even more graphic from the notes. 

Without question ... this is us. Denying the fact is unsupportable. Of course, America has no monopoly on violence, but violence does not justify violence. We supposedly evolved beyond the "eye for and eye," concept of justice. To acquiesce, to submit to the notion that this is the way it has always been and will always be, is to accept it and to support this premise. If you do not support atrocities you should not support war.

War is an atrocity.