WASHINGTON (Rooters agency) – Defending the Administration’s refusal to condemn Israeli bombing of Gaza because “Israel has the right to defend itself,” Secretary of State Wynkin Blinkered today argued that “American support for the right of self-defense has a long tradition.”

Think of the settling of the United States West, Blinkered said. “Those brave pioneers in their covered wagons: when they were attacked, they drew into a circle and defended themselves with rifle fire or Gatling guns until the attackers retreated or were dead.”

Earlier in US history, during the American Revolution and even colonial times, Americans firmly exercised their right to self-defense, Blinkered continued, causing surviving hostile Indian forces to retreat westward.

In more recent history, he said, at the end of the 19th century in China, armed terrorists, who initially masqueraded as “boxers”, attacked Europeans and Americans: diplomats, missionaries, soldiers, opium merchants and similar peaceful and lawful residents or visitors. The United States was part of the Eight Nation Alliance that successfully defended international law and the threatened groups, whom the terrorists identified on the basis of race.

In the same period, American troops in the Philippines, who, Blinkered pointed out, were lawfully present to maintain peace and good order in accordance with a treaty between the US and Spain, the previous lawful authority, were attacked by terrorists calling themselves the “Philippine Republic.” The US and its troops defended themselves bravely throughout the subsequent three-year police action that was necessary to suppress the terrorists.

“If you study history,” Blinkered concluded, “America has always stood up for the right of self-defense. Just the last century alone is an almost unbroken record of the United States defending itself against threats and attacks from literally scores of different countries. It would be rank hypocrisy if we were to criticize our ally, Israel, for following our lead in its own, much smaller, way.”