Propaganda is easy to unpack once you get down a few basic rules.  One of them is this: “the louder the slogan, the bigger the lie“.

That is also the case with Veteran’s Day in which US Americans thank their veterans for their “service”.

Now even setting aside the true reasons why US Americans sign up, there is a much more important fact which the US propaganda machine is trying to whitewash: US “servicepersons” (yup, let’s keep up with the times!) ALWAYS fight in the other guy’s backyard.  Always.

So they have to somehow resolve this self-evident contradiction: I fight for the other guy, in his own backyard, by fighting against him.

In order to make that one stick or, at least, to damp the cognitive dissonance, you do two things: first, you demonize the other guy while, second, you claim to “serve” for high, lofty and utterly meaningless notions like “manifest destiny”, “democracy” or even, as I heard recently, to “save the Jews from the Nazi gas chambers”.

And it works.

The bigger the lie, the louder the slogans, the more energetic the flag-waving and the bigger the patriotic hysteria around the “gratitude” towards those who are, undeniably, hired murderers (even those who do not pull the trigger, but help others do so).

Of course, no matter what kind of mental gymnastics are needed to obfuscate the true nature of what the veterans really did (and still are doing), the truth seeps under this ideological concertina wire, especially when veterans blow their brains out, suffer from PTSD, drown in drugs and booze and end up homeless in immense numbers. 

So Veteran’s Day is not about veterans at all, it is about self-absolution; about just for one day pretending to care about veterans and their “service”.  But crucially, this day of shame is about whitewashing murder.

Violence and lies are twin brothers always working hand in hand towards their common goal.

We can get a feeling for the magnitude of the violence perpetrated by US servicepersons by observing the ideological intensity of the “protective shield” of lies which is needed to conceal the true nature of their actions.

I don’t know if Latin American drug cartels have a “Dia del Sicario” but if they don’t, they should emulate the “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave” and create one, celebrated with lots of flags and expressions of patriotic piety.

I personally will join those few souls who hope that the day will come when the US military will truly be what it has never been before: a force whose mission is to protect the people of the USA from foreign threats (not that I can see from where this threat may come from).

Only then will the US sicarios become real soldiers.

—Andrei

The Saker is the nom de guerre of the founder and editor-in-chief of The Saker network of anti-imperialist, antiwar sites dedicated to information, analysis. and commentary on the global struggle between a decaying imperialism led by the Anglo-Americans, and the emergent sovereign powers of Eurasia, China, Russia and Iran. 

Fiercely chauvinistic, and wrapped in mawkish sentimentality, the knee-jerk expression "Thank you for your service" was manufactured and is kept alive by the hypocritical corporate media to stigmatise any criticism of imperialist war. It is a propaganda meme aimed at injecting conformity among the US population. For countless men from the working class who put on the uniform, believing the reasons given by the state, the gratitude and adulation seem genuine and logical. Foreign war is usually the most exciting moment in their otherwise humdrum and powerless existence. Besides, who doesn't like a good parade?

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.