If you are a citizen of a rogue country, what does that make you?

The question posed in the title of this essay is, perhaps, not so hard to answer if we imagine a citizen of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, or North Korea. In many ways we view the citizens of these countries to be prisoners of their governments and while we may hold the police and military accountable, we forgive the citizens because we consider them to be powerless to make changes in these regimes. Dictators, among other things, are notorious for not seeking citizen input before taking decisions that have far reaching consequences, both locally and globally.

Americans are so understanding about this, our leaders often craft awkwardly worded statements stating that, for example, and I paraphrase 'we are not at war with the Iraqi people, we are at war with Saddam Hussein and his military.' Oddly, these lovely words rarely prevent the death of average citizens who we openly recognize as being completely powerless to affect change. In the case of Iraq, the Iraq Body Count project (IBC) has documented 155,923 -- 174,355 civilian deaths from violence as of March 2016. For not being at war with the Iraqi people, America sure killed a lot of Iraqis.

Now it's time to step into the mirror and look out from the other side. Unlike the above mentioned countries, America is not a dictatorship or a strongly authoritarian country. In fact Americans usually boast about the greatness of American democracy and point proudly to "one man/woman, one vote" to indicate that Americans shape their destiny not their elected government. Americans work hard for most, if not all, of their lives and the IRS is omnipresent to take their cut to fund the America that Americans love so much.

This brings us to that rather horrific number regarding civilian deaths in Iraq. What is the average American's culpability for each of those deaths? If Americans set their own destiny through their democracy and fund their destiny through their tax dollars, then the responsibility for these civilian deaths would seem to fall at the feet of every American. As would the 26,000 deaths in Afghanistan, the 14,000 -- 18,000 deaths in Libya, the 280,000 deaths in Syria, and the 60 - 212 civilian Syrians  killed on July 19, 2016 (numbers come from different agencies).

Civilians are killed each and every day. They include women, children, men, the young, the old, and the handicapped. They are nurses, doctors, teachers, students, bakers, and every other occupation.  They are killed by day and by night, but most noticeably, they are killed by America's freely and democratically elected government. The military machine that carries out the killing is funded by American tax dollars, and therefore, by American tax payers.

Americans are going to have to face a brutal reality. We are going to have to acknowledge that our country and government  is, in some ways, similar to North Korea, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and we that we as citizens are virtually powerless to affect our county's destiny or we must accept that we control our destiny and that red stuff on our hands is the blood of thousands of innocent lives that were killed on our behalf. We can claim to be impotent sheep herded about by our government, or we can claim to be democratic citizens of a county that routinely elects and funds a government that carries out crimes against humanity.

Admittedly, not much of a choice. I wish I saw a third option, but for now, I only see these two. And while you may say that you oppose such killings, I don't think it will make much difference to those who seek to avenge the death of their friends and family by trying to kill you or your friends and family.

The Sane Progressive: The lesser of two evils.