US soldiers giving salute. Photo: Shutterstock.
By Caitlin Johnstone – Mar 11, 2026
“You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper.” ~ Daniel Crimmins
Nobody wants to believe they’re the villain in the story. Nobody wants to believe their government is run by psychopaths who are inflicting unfathomable evils upon populations around the globe in order to rule the world.
It’s much nicer to believe you’re the Good Guys. Much easier to sit with the idea that your government might make an innocent mistake here and there, but overall is a driving force for the good of humankind, and is certainly superior to the villains it makes war with.
That’s a fiction, though. It’s a comfortable lie. A fairy tale that westerners tell themselves to avoid a profoundly uncomfortable truth.
The truth is that we are the villains.
We are the terrorists.
We are the tyrants.
We are the evil regime.
Our soldiers aren’t out there defending our country, they’re out there murdering people for defending their country. They’re not fighting for freedom and democracy, they’re fighting for money and power.
Daniel Crimmins from the US Army 3rd Infantry Division wrote the following about the Iraq War in 2015:
“Then you realize you haven’t seen anything to support the idea that these poor fuckers are a threat to your home. You look around and you see all the contractors making six figure salaries to fix your shit, train Iraqis, maintain the ridiculous SUVs the KBR dicks ride around in. You consider the fact that every 25mm shell costs about forty bucks, and your company has been handing those fuckers out like shrapnel flavored parade candies. You think about all the fuel you’re going through, all the ammo and missiles and grenades. You think about every time you lose a vehicle, the Army buys a new one. Maybe you start to see a lot of people making a lot of money on huge amounts of human suffering.
“Then you go on leave, and realize that Ayn Rand has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about. You realize that Fox News and Limbaugh and John McCain don’t respect you or your buddies. They don’t give a fuck if you get a parade or a box when you get home, you’re nothing to them but a prop.
“Then you get out, and you hate the news. You hate the apathy, and you hate the murder being carried out in your name. You grew up wanting so bad to be Luke Skywalker, but you realize that you were basically a Stormtrooper, a faceless, nameless rifleman, carrying a spear for empire, and you start to accept the startlingly obvious truth that these are people like you.”
That’s the reality right there, folks. We can wake up and start living in reality, or we can remain asleep in the fiction.
It’s time to wake up to the reality that western civilization is a depraved dystopia where most people are sleepwalking in a propaganda-addled stupor under an empire that is fueled by human blood. And it’s time to awaken to the fact that as westerners it is our duty to tear that empire down brick by brick, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and for the sake of our fellow man.
Caitlin Johnstone
Rogue journalist. Bogan socialist. Anarcho-psychonaut. Guerrilla poet. Utopia prepper.
