I was reading a blog recently and the writer was discussing congnitive dissonence. This is where a person holds a quite an irational position and has no qualms with this irational position. In other words that person can hold two vastly opposing views in their mind without blinking an eyelid.
Let me give you a for instance. One of the reasons that the US invaded Iraq was that they tortured people. The US supreme court recently dismissed a case brought by a German citizen against the CIA for torture on the grounds of national security. Surely Sadam could have argued national security quite cogently? The primary reason that the US invaded Iraq was that it had weapons of mass destruction. Which country holds the geatest number of weapons of mass destruction? Now this is not the interesting part. There is a certain mindset amongst some US citizens that would argue that the above statements means that I think Israel should be wiped off the map. That I am disloyal to my own troops serving in Iraq. Further I have been told that when I express an opinion on US affairs that it is none of my business. In fact this is precicesly what the US supremem court did to the German citiizen who claimed to be
tortured by the CIA. In fact the US which was founded on the principle of equality has perpetrated some gross human rights violations against citizens of many countries for many years, not only since the tragic incidents on the 11th of September. That was just another excuse to perpetrata yet more human rights violations.
Unfortunately this is just another example of that wise statement “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. The good news is that the power of the US will fade – the bad news is there will be yet another world empire to take its place that may have even more power and be even more corrupt.