CLEFONER

America did not lose in Vietnam because it lacked bombs. It had more than enough. It did not lose because it lacked allies. It bought plenty. It lost because the story it told about itself could not survive contact with our reality. You cannot call yourself a defender of freedom while burning children alive. You cannot call yourself a force for stability while turning whole regions into graveyards. The Global South should understand this. The so-called rules based order is written by the arsonist, after the fire. Vietnam exposed that. Palestine exposes that. Iraq exposes that. Every ruined city on a distant continent is another chapter in the same manual. The lesson is not that America is hypocritical. The lesson is that the hypocrisy is the strategy.