My Take | A genocidal warmongering nation disguised as a democracy?
- From its inception to the present, the US rarely distinguishes between diplomacy and war. Today, it has ambassadors working in one-third of the world’s countries, but has special force operators active in three quarters of them
“They make their rules to be broken. The United States has broken every rule it has ever made, from its first treaty with France to every treaty with us [native Indian tribes], to their last treaty with Iran. They only hold others to their rules. They make war when they want, where they want; they take what they want. Then they make rules that keep you from taking it back.”
– A dialogue from season 3 finale of Yellowstone, a neo-Western cable TV series starring Kevin Costner
These days, the best dramas in North America are usually not from the silver screen, which is populated by comic characters generated by CGI effects. Instead, it’s streaming TV if your mental age is older than 17. The conversation quoted above pretty much captures the history of the US conquest, both on the continent and then around the world. Since last week, I have been bingeing on Costner’ superb Yellowstone, about ruthless fights over land in modern-day Montana.
Though a dramatic dialogue, the statements made can actually be supported factually and statistically.
“The United States has broken every rule it has ever made, from its first treaty with France to every treaty with us [native Indian tribes] …”
Between 1778 and 1871, the US government made more than 500 treaties with numerous indigenous nations or tribes. Of these, nearly 370 were ratified by the US Congress and signed by the president of the day. Historians disagree on whether all or most of them – the exact number is under dispute – were broken. But there is no dispute that a majority of such treaties were broken, unilaterally altered or simply nullified.