Years later, whether you are in a nursing home or surrounded by your loved ones, you will either be proud of the time you have raised your right hand or suffer the weight of your conscience until your final breathing.
I will write this letter. Because we believe that every human being needs to remind us of the past to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Let it be simple. Throughout their lives, people repeatedly face intersections of choice at the moment they request “yes” or “no” from repeated events. These decisions can change the course of history depending on the authority behind them.
I share the stories of a handful of individuals whose choices have shaped their historical heritage. I hope to answer this question. How does the political system allow the perpetrator to continue living without fragments of regret?
First group: Those who say yes to the mirage of power
Adolf Eichmann, an infamous Hitler German official in the early days of World War II
Adolf Eichmann, the head of the “Jewish Affairs” section of the Reich Main Security Office and the administrator of the Nazi Death Camp, was arrested in Argentina after the war, attempted and executed in a highly publicized trial in Israel.
At the trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann was forced to answer all “yes” that served Hitler’s national socialist regime. Observed by Hannah Arendt, a Jewish philosopher and author of *Ichmann of Jerusalem*. He is either de-dropped or sadistic, but terrifying, devastatingly *normal*.
Allend argued that Eichmann’s sole motivation was to climb the ranks of Hitler’s regime with diligence and dedication. Eichmann lacked imagination and prevented him from empathizing with him, critical thinking, or grasping the consequences of his actions. He wasn’t stupid. His pure thoughts have transformed him into one of the great criminals of history. He really didn’t understand what he was doing. Arendt analysed his dependence on clichés and bureaucratic jargon, revealing his inability to stand up to reality independently. She unraveled the self-deception and separation from the truth that permeated both Eichmann’s mind and the broader German society of his time.
Robert McNamara
American military strategist who ranks up and becomes US Secretary of Defense. During World War II, he masterminded the ruthless bombing of Japanese cities. A few days before the Hiroshima atomic bomb, he deployed hundreds of planes in Tokyo and incinerated the city and its residents in Napalm. His infamous statement: “If the Allies had lost the war, I would have been tried in Nuremberg as a war criminal in place of a Nazi officer.”
However, McNamara’s calculations have been delayed for a long time. He created the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, a false claim of Vietnam’s attack on USS *Maddox *, to justify the war with North Vietnam. The lies sparked a prolonged conflict claiming the lives of millions of Vietnamese people and tens of thousands of Americans.
40 years later, McNamara admitted that USS * Maddox * was not present. Secret documents proved that Vietnamese boats never attacked US ships. But his crime did not end there. As the longest US Secretary of Defense (1961-1968), he was a leading architect in the escalation of the Vietnam War. Decades later, he confessed his doubts about the effectiveness of the US ruthless bombing campaign in North Vietnam, admitting that he did not believe he would succeed.
McNamara admitted to recognizing the futileness of the Vietnam War, but as a government strategist, he continued the conflict to test new military tactics! A few years before his death, in the documentary The Fog of War, he reflected on those meaningless actions that entail pain, shame, and regret.
Colin Powell
Colin Powell, who died in 2021 at the age of 84 of Covid-19, played a pivotal role in shaping the White House foreign policy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. On February 5, 2003, during a meeting of the UN Security Council, he defended the US-led invasion of Iraq. Holding a vial of white powder and cites an unknown Iraqi source, he declared, “There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and has the ability to produce more quickly.”
By September 13, 2004, Powell had confirmed to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the sources behind his UN speech were “wrong” and that it was “impossible” weapons of mass destruction were seen in Iraq. He later admitted that his case against the council was false and that the Intelligence News, which he relied on, was “deliberately misleading.” However, this entry was too late to justify killing hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and American soldiers.
Linda Thomas Greenfield
As Biden’s UN envoy, she argues that she claims that when Hutu extremists massacred Tuttis during the Rwandan genocide (after the president believed he was assassinated by a group of opposition), she is captured by Hatus, in the story she proves. With a gun on her head, she pleaded that she was American, not Tsuchi, and that she would exaggerate her thick Louisiana accent to secure her release.
However, the terrifying genocide survivors repeatedly lifted the UN’s right hand to reject the ceasefire resolution in Gaza, allowing for the continued massacre of Palestinians. A few years from now, the book is titled *MS. Greenfield in Gaza may, like Eichmann, record a joke with the kids at the dinner table after issuing brutal orders. Her mind was fixed only on the climbing of the ladder. Just as Eichmann, McNamara and Powell did not reflect on the consequences of their actions while they were in power.
Part 2: The person who said “No”
Nelson Mandela
Mandela was the commander of the armed wings of the African National Congress (ANC). At the time, the ANC escalated public protests and civil campaigns against apartheid, with Mandela at the forefront. He repeatedly stated that despite his belief in non-violent resistance, the brutality of the apartheid regime was forced to adopt guerrilla tactics. After his arrest, he was sentenced to life in prison and for decades he was named a “terrorist” by the West. During his 27 years of imprisonment, he was offered freedom many times in exchange for condemning his people’s armed struggles. After his release as president and election, his innovative, peace-led leadership morally disarmed the Western world.
Aaron Bushnell
A 25-year-old US Air Force soldier who burned himself outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., protested American accomplices in the Gaza massacre. In his final statement, he wrote:
“I am an active member of the US Air Force. I am no longer part of genocide. I am trying to engage in extreme protests, but it is not at all extreme compared to what Palestinians endure in the hands of the colonists.”
Bushnell didn’t seek promotion or power. He felt compelled to act so that history would not count him as a cog in this genocide machine.
final
To Linda Thomas Greenfield, the new United Nations representative:
Now, you too will lift your hands and wield the power to perpetuate the greatest evil of our time. This power maintains Gaza’s genocide, fuels war in the Middle East, all supporting a man named Netanyahu. A man very consumed by his political survival ignores the future of his own Israelites and the dignity of the faith of the respected Jews.
If you can’t look back at what I wrote today, when you are old and frail, you will inevitably reside in this moment. You will think of what you can do to prevent the massacre of people who have died with the raised hands.
Think of this: Will future generations remember you as Eichmann, McNamara, or Colin Powell?
Or will they honor you as Nelson Mandela or Aaron Bushnell?
It’s a simple choice: yes or no?