“You can’t handle the truth!”

Jack Nicholson’s Marine Colonel bellowed this line in a famous movie. The irony is he was the one who couldn’t handle the truth.

What if Col. Jessep woke up one day and realized it was his own government that was taking away Americans’ freedoms?

“You can’t handle the truth!”

Powerfully delivered by Jack Nicholson in the 1992 movie “A Few Good Men,” this line has probably become the most famous speech on “the truth” in the history of cinema. This represents the depths of irony as the line is delivered by a character who could neither recognize nor handle the truth.

The truth - if it ever belatedly assaulted him - might have blown up the colonel’s psyche and left him in a VA psych ward the rest of his life.

The line remains important today because so many Americans believe Nicholson’s character was telling an incontrovertible truth. Indeed, it’s become the worst kind of “truth” - a truth, largely bogus, that a nation acts on … time and time again - to its detriment.

I think this speech also demonstrates how our rulers use contrived fears to control important narratives that, in turn, control important policies. The m.o. is to instill fear and make the public think our rulers are “protecting” us from threats that really aren’t threats. The same game plan, by now, should be be familiar in Covid times.

I decided to itemize a few of the untruths in this iconic movie scene, or at least identify a few of the questionable assumptions presented in his courtroom tirade.

In the film’s most memorable scene, Marine Col. Nathan Jessep lectures a cocky JAG lawyer played by Tom Cruise. However, he might as well have been addressing an entire nation.

After bellowing, “You can’t handle the truth!” Col. Jessep proceeds to educate the young Naval lawyer on why the truth is repugnant to characters like the JAG attorney.

“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.  Who's gonna do it? You? … I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”

The colonel later barks that he doesn’t want to be questioned by a person who “sleeps under the blanket of freedom I provide.”

Untruth, untruth, untruth …

Col. Jessep proclaims that many Americans, such as the smug lawyer played by Cruise, find the “existence” of people like himself “grotesque.” This statement was also not the truth (i.e. it’s a lie).

While Cruise’s character (correctly) came to detest Col. Jessep for violating the honor and code of The Marines, the Navy attorney did not “curse” the entire Marine corps, nor does he view Marine leaders as “grotesque.”

Indeed most American deeply admire Marines, as they do all members of the military. Americans, including Cruise’s character, celebrate and praise the sacrifices such individuals make during their careers.

According to Col. Jessep’s version of the truth, “deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall.”

Nobody questions the colonel’s ridiculous premise …

At least in my opinion, the real whopper is Col. Jessep’s statement that we “need” Marines on these walls.

Here we  need to consider the definition of the word “need.” In the case of our military base in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, if zero marines were on that wall - or if a troop of Brownies were “defending” that wall ”-  zero attacks on American citizens would occur. 

Cruises’s character would have still been able to enjoy cocktail parties in Georgetown.

That is, the Marines who are on that wall don’t even “need” to be there. 

Fidel Castro might have been a communist dictator, but he wasn’t a suicidal dictator. The day he ordered an attack on that U.S. military base would have been the day he ceased being a dictator.

American Marines and troops do risk their lives in any number of countries, but Guantanamo Bay Cuba is not one of those assignments. America has occupied this piece of real estate on the island of Cuba since 1903. In these 120 years, I’m not aware of a single Marine who’s been killed or wounded during a hostile attack on this post.

Maybe it wasn’t Cuba that was trying to steal our freedoms …

Or perhaps the colonel was not talking about the threat that Cuba represented to America. He might have been reminding his audience of all the other nefarious actors who supposedly have designs on invading America and/or taking away our “freedoms.” If not Cuba in 1991, then Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Iran, Yemen and, by proxy, Russia in the Ukraine war today.

Here we get into the real truths that Americans probably can’t handle. Here we learn that a Big Lie, told often enough, becomes the truth. 

For the vast majority of Americans - and for 98 percent of our politicians and for 98 percent of our press corps -  America’s military deployments “save lives” and protect our freedoms. 

Quick aside: Another “truth” accepted by the Powers that Be is that vaccines (which, in truth, aren’t vaccines) “saved millions of lives” - as did lockdowns, which no doubt increased the number of deaths by some unknown, but insignificant, factor.

At least to me, everything in Col. Jessep’s words and posture comes across as bogus.  He comes across as self-righteous, sanctimonious bully who wants everyone to believe that he is the brave hero doing a thankless job not enough people appreciate.

But what’s really brave about this “politically incorrect” tirade, a speech that was actually politically correct? That is, who actually disagrees with the Marine Colonel’s courtroom vent? 

As far as I can tell, hardly anyone. Not CNN; not The New York Times, not The Washington Post, not “Joe Biden” or Hillary Clinton. Almost everyone believes American troops should be on that figurative “wall;” the more countries the Marines are in the better.

We’re saving lives - and no one should ever question this truth …

Similarly, in the America of 1992 (when the movie came out) - just like in 2023 - no one’s allowed to question Col. Jessep’s assertion that the American military is “saving lives.”

It’s simply understood that the U.S. military’s presence in 100 countries around the world is “saving lives.”

No one (who matters) disputes this, which the Colonel should have known if he simply looked at the size of the Military Industrial Complex, of which he himself was an eager volunteer for decades. 

Actually, a few people do dispute this predicate, but these people are isolationists, pacifists, traitors or Russian sympathizers. 

The truth is just about every patriotic American agrees with the Marine colonel (just like every science-believing American believed every preposterous claim made by Anthony Fauci). If you don’t believe the Marine colonels or the public health generals, woe onto you, brother.

For those who assign our military its never-ending “freedom-protecting” missions, Col. Jessep must be viewed as the ideal Marine. Indeed, the views he trumpeted on the witness stand are exactly those they wish to disseminate far and wide (and have).

A Marine who was really brave might question the neocon policies that put so many Marines in harm’s way for no compelling reason. Such a military officer might have emulated Gen. Eisenhower and offered a criticism of the Military Industrial Complex. 

Instead, Col. Jessep just parroted a “truth” that, by now, no one questions. Again, it’s Col. Jessep who really couldn’t handle the truth.

The threats weren’t real threats

The threats to America that Col. Jessep was willing to risk his life to eliminate weren’t even threats. America’s “national security” was secure all along. America’s military policies weren’t saving lives, they often claimed lives. 

It’s risky to say this, but “freedom” would exist in America even if our Marines were not “on the wall” in 40 percent of the world’s nations.

If America’s military forces had done nothing but guard our own borders, America would be as safe and free as, say, the people of Switzerland, which I note has no Marines on any walls outside their own country.

But these are very hard truths that might cause one to question beliefs that have become sacrosanct.  Col. Jessep was certainly incapable of going to such a place. 

I’ll close with a thought exercise …

As a thought exercise, consider the possibility Col. Jessep woke up one day and realized that for 30 years he’d been following orders and believing that he was keeping Americans back home safe and free. Then, one day, he concluded those citizens would have been safe even if he’d become a carpenter or a poet. 

What if he also concluded it was our own government - not the government of Cuba or Iran or even Russia - that was steadily taking away the freedoms and liberties of American citizens?

What if he realized the raison d’ê·tre of his career - and the way he viewed himself as a  human being - was, in fact, based on falsehoods? 

All along, the real threat to Americans’ freedoms (or national security) wasn’t Cuba … that maybe he was the real enemy … or more, accurately, the real enemies were the leaders who’d been issuing him orders and brainwashing him his whole life.

My guess is that such a revelation would have blown the colonel’s mind. That’s the truth he could never handle or consider … and so, as a psychological safety measure, he never went to that dangerous place in the recesses of his mind.

With the Covid lies, the same thing's happened with 85 percent of the world population. If you don’t go there, your mind won’t detonate.

So the colonel was right about one thing. Most people can’t handle certain truths.

What would have made this movie far more interesting is if the colonel had broken down on the witness stand and bellowed, “I can’t handle the truth!”