This is well worth the read - gives a down-to-earth exposé of the US Govt. policy through the years, its impact on PEOPLE around the world. The article is loooooong but stick with it.
http://www.counterpunch.org/blum1028.html
" … The hate mail almost never challenges any fact or idea I express. They attack me mainly on the grounds of being unpatriotic.
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I don’t think that patriotism is one of the more noble sides of mankind. George Bernard Shaw wrote that patriotism is the conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it. And remember that the German people who supported the Nazi government can be seen as being patriotic, and the German government called them just that.
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Although I’m not loyal to any country or government, like most of you I am loyal to certain principles, like political and social justice, economic democracy, human rights.
The moral of my message to you is this: If your heart and mind tell you clearly that the bombing of impoverished, hungry, innocent peasants is a terrible thing to do and will not make the American people any more secure, you should protest it in any way you can and don’t be worried about being called unpatriotic.
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But of the thousands in Afghanistan who died from American bombs, how many do you think had any part in the events of 9-11? I’ll make a rough guess and say “none.” How many do you think ever took part in any other terrorist act against the United States? We’ll never know for sure, but my guess would be a number in the very low one digits, if that. Terrorist acts don’t happen very often after all, and usually are carried out by a handful of men. So, of all those killed by the American actions, were any of them amongst any of those few handfuls of terrorists, many of whom were already in prison?
Keep in mind that the great majority of those who were at a training camp of al Qaeda in Afghanistan were there to help the Taliban in their civil war, nothing to do with terrorism or the United States. It was a religious mission for them, none of our business. But we killed them or have held them under terrible conditions at the Guantanamo base in Cuba for a very long time now, with no end in sight, with many attempts at suicide there amongst the prisoners.
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The whole thing had been a con game. The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had not been the object of our global attacks. There had never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy was, and remains, any government or movement, or even individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the American Empire; by whatever name we give to the enemy - communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist.You think the American Empire is against terrorists? What do you call a man who blows up an airplane killing 73 people, who attempts assassinations against several diplomats, who fires cannons at ships docked in American ports? What do you call a man who places bombs in numerous commercial and diplomatic buildings in the U.S. and abroad? Dozens of such acts. His name is Orlando Bosch, he’s Cuban and he lives in Miami, unmolested by the authorities. The city of Miami once declared a day in his honor - Orlando Bosch Day. He was freed from prison in Venezuela, where he had been held for the airplane bombing, partly because of pressure from the American ambassador, Otto Reich, who earlier this year was appointed to the State Dept. by George W.
After Bosch returned to the U.S. in 1988, the Justice Dept condemned him as a totally violent terrorist and was all set to deport him, but that was blocked by President Bush, the first, with the help of son Jeb Bush in Florida. So is George W. and his family against terrorism? Well, yes, they’re against those terrorists who are not allies of the empire.
The plane that Bosch bombed, by the way, was a Cuban plane. He’s wanted in Cuba for that and a host of other serious crimes, and the Cubans have asked Washington to turn him over to them; to Cuba he’s like Osama Bin Laden is to the United States. But the U.S. has refused. Can you imagine the reaction in Washington if bin Laden showed up in Havana and the Cubans refused to turn him over? Can you imagine the reaction in the United States if Havana proclaimed Osama Bin Laden Day?..But our leaders are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It’s not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It’s that they just don’t care … if that’s a distinction worth making. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the Empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren’t happening to them or people close to them … then they just don’t care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home - the ones who make it back - with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. Our leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things…
The State Department recently held a conference on how to improve America’s image abroad in order to reduce the level of hatred; image is what they’re working on, not change of policies.
But the policies scorecard reads as follows: From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist movements fighting against insufferable regimes. In the process, the U.S. bombed about 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.
If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize - very publicly and very sincerely - to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce that America’s global interventions have come to an end and inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but - believe it or not - a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90 percent and use the savings to pay reparations to our victims and repair the damage from our bombings. There would be enough money. Do you know what one year’s military budget is equal to? One year. It’s equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born.
That’s what I’d do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I’d be assassinated.
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