“Those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it.” This quote permeates through our society as a reminder that it is impermissible to forget the sins of the past.
America has demonstrated its ability to understand this essential concept. Our country has numerous museums in memoriam of the millions of innocent Jewish lives lost during the Holocaust. In California, walls were erected to commemorate the struggles of Japanese-Americans during their time in internment camps. In certain places such as the Little Bighorn Battlefield, the government has even built monuments to honor the loss of Native American lives and mourn the eradication of Native American culture, however hollow that may seem to some. Clearly, the USA understands that atoning for bloodied history is the path to preventing its repetition.
But this fact is what makes it all the more baffling that our country’s government continues to follow the roads it has walked before. The decades following World War II and the subsequent decolonization of Africa and Asia have not seen the United States reconsider its behavior as a global superpower. Rather, it has partaken in the same pitfalls that enabled similar kinds of mass violence, hatred, and genocide. The US seems to perpetually forget about the humanity of citizens across the globe and repeatedly takes part in or funds genocide.
Perhaps the most telling sign of this in the past year is how our leaders treated the death of former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. President Joe Biden commended his, “his fierce intellect and profound strategic focus,” while former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg deemed his death, “a loss for our country and the world—and for all of us who were fortunate enough to call him a dear friend and mentor.”
They fail to mention, however, his record of bombing innocent civilians. During the Vietnam War, under his and President Richard Nixon’s order, the US military dropped about 500,000 tons of bombs in Cambodia leading to the deaths of between 50,000 to 150,000 people in the name of “protecting democracy” and “defeating communism.” Ironically enough, the aftermath of these bombings was so devastating that it allowed communist leader Pol Pot to weaponize anti-Western propaganda and assume control of Cambodia. His policies would lead to millions of deaths within the country.
However, the US forgot. Our leaders forgot. Lives extinguished in an instant forgotten by those responsible for their deaths. It did not stop in Southeast Asia either. Kissinger’s enabling of violence via the US imperial machine stretched to Latin America as well, where he propped up the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet to overthrow Salvador Allende’s popular socialist government.
Once again, Kissinger’s actions empowered a brutalistic regime that cracked down on human rights and slaughtered dissidents. Even when he didn’t have a direct hand in violence, he stood idly by as the CIA partook in Operation Condor, which carried out political assassinations, support for anti-socialist revolutions that propped up authoritarian regimes in the US interest, and aided in the capture and torture of dissidents. Again, not a word from figureheads within this country about his sins.
Following Kissinger’s tenure, the US carried on his legacy by continuing its violent interventionary policy, from the support of Museveni’s regime committing genocide in Rwanda during the Clinton administration to the immense civlian loss in the Middle East across the three different presidencies of Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Obama. The blood of the innocent paints the canvas of modern American history, yet those that wielded the brush have shut their eyes to their work.
This ignorance to the past for the sake of expanding US power has created a cycle of violence that has haunted us for decades upon decades. Unfortunately, to this day, the US imperialistic machine chooses to fund violence and conflict for its own geopolitical ends. In Yemen, the US since 2002, has launched over four-hundred airstrikes in the region to counter the Houthi rebels, and even following Biden’s cease of US military operations, continues to sell weapons to the Saudi-backed regime that uses its weapons to block off fuel supply that greatly impeded food access due to Yemen’s heavy reliance on importation for food. At the same time, the US has reduced its aid for the area by 25 percent since last year. Though, according to a Quincy Institute study, US involvement is pointless and only empowers the Houthi regime that it opposes, it continues to indulge in its bad habit of involving itself in situations it has no business in and funding slaughter.
Yet no memorials. No presidents showing reverence after these deaths. No compassion shown to what their lives once were. The US knows its own history, and our government has displayed the ability to learn from its past—but it also has not. It continues to repeat its sins because of the perceived benefits. When will human life matter more? When will their sympathy stretch beyond their own borders? Our leaders must choose humanity over profit and power in order to light the way forward.
