BERNARD-HENRI LÉVY: American Honor. Even in the midst of deep humiliation, there are still signs of the exceptional nation I’ve loved since childhood:

America today is under the shadow of this self-inflicted Saigon, this botched Dunkirk, this deep humiliation. But there are also these moments of brotherhood that make you wonder whether you’re in a Kathryn Bigelow film, or a Netflix series on the Navy Seals, or that you’re standing next to Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne; but that’s not the case! This is real life; these are everyday heroes who simply decided, out of conscience, not to let the trap door close on obscurantism and crime.

These heroes have lent, to speak like the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, a “purer meaning” to the principles of “empathy” and “service,” which are those of the great American “tribe,” Democrats and Republicans alike.

These heroes are here to remind the world that the strange, nameless country made up of the United States of America remains an exceptional nation, faithful to its founding idea, whose flame may flicker but never goes out entirely.

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