You, Sir, Are Not Welcome in Rome

[Update added at the end.]

Here's the shorter version of the paternalistic, imperialistic, condescending Democrats:

After we destroy your country and unleash a vicious civil war which takes the lives of between 100 and 200 innocent Iraqis every day, and after we see that you are installed as leader of this dying country and prop up your doomed and ineffectual government, we expect you to repeat our propaganda without question or criticism. If you do not, you obviously cannot expect to be warmly received in Rome. We have lost American lives and treasure on this disastrous venture. True, we had no justifiable reason whatsoever for taking these actions, and it was absolutely none of our goddamned business. But we did so anyway, out of the endless beneficence of our magnanimous, "civilizing" hearts. So you will express appropriate thanks, you ungrateful bastard. Otherwise, get the hell out of town.

Here's the longer version. I draw your attention to these paragraphs:

Senate Democrats in a letter to Maliki called his statements "very troubling" and asked for an explanation, but did not demand that his speech be canceled.

Several lawmakers said they would press Maliki for his view on the Middle East conflict in meetings before the prime minister makes his address, which is intended to try to reassure lawmakers that U.S. lives and money have not been squandered on a country descending into civil war.

Oh, my, yes: we have to reassure the lawmakers -- who helped make this disaster possible, a disaster which they still will not disavow -- that their immoral and illegitimate actions were not taken in vain.

And note this:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Maliki, in his White House appearance with President George W. Bush, again failed to state his view of Hizbollah, which the United States deems a terrorist organization.

"We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq. We've lost more than 2,500 American soldiers, more than 20,000 wounded. We deserve that answer," Reid said.

With all due respect -- which is to say: none -- shut up, you offensive idiot. No one asked us to "spen[d] hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq." No one asked us to send Americans to Iraq. We did that all on our own, goddamn us.

One more excerpt:

House Democrats in their letter to Hastert cited reports that Iraqi leaders were "increasingly influenced" by Iran, and said the "goal of the invasion in Iraq was not to remove one threat in favor of another."

A number of people pointed out this precise danger, among many others, before the invasion of Iraq began. Our governing class ignored all such warnings.

The attitude of Western colonialism and condescension is nauseating in the extreme -- and it is typical of the Democrats. This is why I have repeatedly said that everyone in the political and foreign policy establishment works out of the same playbook: the playbook of "Western exceptionalism," which gives us the "right" to "civilize" the rest of the world by force, whether they want us to or not. Our narcissism is disgusting and repellent. We have but a single, monolithic, warmongering establishment. Since these views are so entrenched in all parts of the governing class, the next war cannot be far away.

What an absolutely sickening nation we are today. God can forgive us, although I have no idea why He would. I do not expect the rest of the world to -- nor should they.

UPDATE: I linked my discussion of John Kerry's NYT op-ed piece above. I had forgotten how profoundly offensive his article is. Consider this passage from my post:

The nauseating depths of the Western conviction of its own "exceptionalism" and its unquestionable "right" to coerce the rest of the world to act as we demand are revealed in Kerry's final paragraph:

For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that. We can put the American leadership on the side of our soldiers and push the Iraqi leadership to do what only it can do: build a democracy.

Let me repeat the only fundamental point that matters here: we have no right to be in Iraq in the first place. Since we have no right to be there at all, by what damnable "right" are we entitled to get "tougher" with the Iraqis? Endless violence, instantaneous death or dismemberment, the inability to live any kind of normal existence, and the destruction of an entire country are the "gifts" we have brought to Iraq. And now we're going to get "tougher"? To call this sickening does not even begin to capture the degree of immorality and dishonesty involved.

Kerry's approach thus veers perilously and disgustingly close to the American military commander who said toward the end of 2003: "You have to understand the Arab mind. ... The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face." As I wrote about such comments (and the full essay has much more on the mechanisms involved)....

The earlier entry has more.