The myth of American exceptionalism
But even more galling was Obama’s Fort Bragg address to troops returning from Iraq. He commended their willingness to sacrifice “so much for a people that you had never met,” which, he insisted, was “part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the old empires, we don’t make these sacrifices for territory or for resources. We do it because it’s right … a unique willingness among nations to pay a great price for the progress of human freedom and dignity. This is who we are. That’s what we do as Americans.” Towards the end Alan Greenspan, the long-serving chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, thought such statements absurd. “I am saddened,” he wrote, “that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
But when viewed through the lens of exceptionalism, even the worst atrocities can become tolerable to the historically challenged. The U.S. invasion of Vietnam is the most egregious case of external aggression by any nation in the post-WWII era. Martin Luther King, America’s greatest moral voice since the Second World War, said, “If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Vietnam.” However, a recent Gallup poll found that 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 believe the war was “not a mistake.” In May 2012, Obama announced a 13-year “commemoration” of the Vietnam War, honoring those Americans who fought “heroically to protect the ideals we hold dear as Americans.”
We wonder which ideals, exactly, Obama was referring to. A few years before his death, former secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told students at American University that 3.8 million Vietnamese died in that war. Most college students, when asked in informal surveys, place the number at a quarter of that amount or less. The Vietnam Memorial Wall in D.C. contains the names of 58,272 Americans who died in the war. Its message is that the tragedy of that wretched war was that 58,000 Americans died. The wall is 146 feet long.









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Oliver Stoned out of his mind still stuck in the 60′s counter culture movement.
bgibbs1000 on October 28, 2013 at 7:43 PM
See: Myth of Oliver Stone.
Scribbler on October 28, 2013 at 7:46 PM
really not the ussr into afghanistan or china into tibet or how about the ussr into hungary 1956 or ussr into czechoslovakia 1968.
effin pinhead
newrouter on October 28, 2013 at 7:49 PM
Does he know what American Exceptionalism is?
ThePrez on October 28, 2013 at 7:51 PM
or saddam’s iraq invasion of kuwait
newrouter on October 28, 2013 at 7:51 PM
This is definitely true… as long as you don’t count anything done by the Soviet Union, China, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, Argentina, Libya, France or (ironically enough) Vietnam itself.
Fabozz on October 28, 2013 at 7:56 PM
Oliver Stone, go to hell.
You are most assuredly not among the exceptional.
Go back and endlessly rewind the Zapruder Film.
turfmann on October 28, 2013 at 7:57 PM
MSM View-
Oliver Stone: Not Crazy
Tea party: Crazy
portlandon on October 28, 2013 at 7:59 PM
I often take my lessons in morality from a man who poisoned his father with LSD, has been arrested multiple times for taking proscribed substances, and habitually take hallucinogenic drugs.
/s
LincolntheHun on October 28, 2013 at 8:04 PM
-Oliver Stone
By this logic, the second most egregious case of external aggression was the British invasion of Iraq. Have you ever hear of “France,” Oliver?
HitNRun on October 28, 2013 at 8:07 PM
What gives him the idea that American Exceptionalism derives from conduct in foreign policy?
Valkyriepundit on October 28, 2013 at 8:09 PM
He has no idea what American exceptionalism is. What an idiot.
Ellis on October 28, 2013 at 8:13 PM
Commie boy Stone has no idea of what the term American exceptionalism means.
Jasper61 on October 28, 2013 at 8:14 PM
Cuba beckons freak.
Bensonofben on October 28, 2013 at 8:19 PM
Oliver Stone is a boil on Michael Moore’s ass. Fuck him.
Rixon on October 28, 2013 at 8:20 PM
There isn’t a mikvah deep or dirty enough for this hideous turd.
Rixon on October 28, 2013 at 8:21 PM
My favorite scene from “Platoon” is when the NVA sapper runs into Battalion HQ where Stone is playing the BC and … he blows him up.
smoothsailing on October 28, 2013 at 8:21 PM
The mistake was abandoning the South Vietnamese to Ho Chi Min in the end.
Count to 10 on October 28, 2013 at 8:24 PM
This illustrates a stark difference between the left and the right. If the left talks about and believes in any sort of American exceptionalism they are talking about what the nation does, such as winning WWII or building the freeways system. When the right talks about it, they are referring to the exceptional individuals that are Americans and the exceptional things they do.
Flange on October 28, 2013 at 8:25 PM
Odds are that it Olly were born in one of the countries he adores like Cuba or Venenzula, he’d be spending his twilight years rolling 2 dollars cigars for tourists.
Bensonofben on October 28, 2013 at 8:25 PM
He doesn’t think very much of his country. The left does that to people.
thebrokenrattle on October 28, 2013 at 8:44 PM
Oliver is not only a mediocrity, he’s desperately trying to metastasize.
trigon on October 28, 2013 at 9:39 PM
Some “adults” never grow out of the childish “I HATE YOU DAD” stage of adolescence.
ClassicCon on October 28, 2013 at 10:04 PM
Oliver Stone is famous for making fictional movies that he falsely characterizes as actual history. I think the only thing he got right in the movie JFK was that Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
Reggie1971 on October 28, 2013 at 10:11 PM
WTH are you talking about? Tibet has been a part of China since at least the Qing Dynasty and has never been recognized as an independent nation by the US or any other major power.
DarkCurrent on October 29, 2013 at 9:54 AM