FOR ALL MY OLD FRIENDS

Dear old friends,

We have fallen out, because I am critical of the United States. I'm sorry: but we can't be friends if I have to lie, or keep my mouth shut when my country--it is still my country as much as it is yours--is acting like Nazi Germany.

That's not an exaggeration. And you know it isn't. This country has been fighting wars of aggression--or as the outgoing Secretary of Defense and Obama Toady Medal winner calls them, "wars of choice"--since 1949. Constantly.

We bomb civilians. Remember when Reagan bombed Tripoli because some US soldiers had been murdered in a bar in Germany? But the perpetrators weren't Libyans. Remember Reagan's stupid, lying invasion of Greneda? And when the truth came out, remember how the US press forgot to mention it?

Remember the train full of Bosnian civilians that Clinton bombed--because it happened to be crossing a bridge the we wanted to destroy?

Remember Vietnam--and Johnson's lies about the Gulf of Tonkin? Remember Bush I's lies about the first War Against Iraq? Remember Bush II and his war against Iraq?

And Afghanistan?

Remember Bush's torture camp at Guantanamo Bay? Remember Obama's torture camp at Guantanamo Bay?

You don't have to remember the torture of Bradley manning, or his illegal imprisonment. It's still happening.

And you want me to be quiet? To keep still? To shut up?

I live in Germany now, among honorable people who are ashamed of their ancestors who kept quiet during the Nazi years. I also know many honorable people whose ancestors did not keep quiet during the Nazi years.

Why are so many of you keeping quiet? Why do you acquiesce in the face of the outrages our government commits? What is wrong with you? And it is a wrong, and you know it.

Bert