Ten years ago tonight, my country, my beloved USA, became the Bad Guys. We became the attackers. Sad to say, this is not commonly admitted, any more than we admit that we admit that we invaded Canada in 1812, and were thrown out, or that we stole what is now the US Southwest from Mexico, and then called the treaty the Gadsden Purchase, or that we created, in part, the situations in Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq that are now still burdening us and the world. We like to think well of ourselves, as do all people. There is no excuse for teaching lies to kids in history books, though.
There were heroes then; many people opposed the war, voted against the war, marched against the war, and many then paid for their patriotism. The lucky ones were just booed, the more unfortunate lost their jobs. There are many now who still are out telling the truth, and bringing more facts out into the light. Along with the Bush administration, the American press let us down ten years ago with their unquestioning acceptance of the administration lies. And now that same press continues to call upon those guilty of this horrible war, the architects and shills, to give their assessment of the situation now! Unbelievable. And it isn't just Fox "News" either. These "neo-cons" should pay a price for lying to the country, leading to untold thousands upon thousands of deaths and injuries, and beggaring both the US economy and the entire nation of Iraq.
History is based upon the facts, not the white-washing that is currently being attempted. We invaded Iraq for no good reasons, our occupation wrecked the country, and we left in disgrace. Lying about the past will never change the truth. The US lost the War of 1812, and we were the aggressors in the Spanish-American War, the Mexican-American War, the Second Iraq War, and many others. I love my country, and I have to tell the truth.
And now back to free software.
The rest of the world already knows all this. It's only Americans who need to be told!
ReplyDeleteAnd good on her for telling them.
DeleteThe 'price' that 'neo-cons need to pay is the destruction of our country by the current president?
ReplyDeleteAlong with the situation of Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. Pakistan is also badly affected both economically and socially due to this War.
ReplyDeleteIts really good to read the views of an American which are totally different than the Government.
Peacemakers is a long standing term.
ReplyDeleteAnyway follow the money: simply check which companies got the contracts for most of the weapons used in those conflicts. It ain't that far away from Bush family.
Don't spam planet Ubuntu with this. Its against the code of conduct to attack others countries , even if they are your own
ReplyDeleteI don’t think this is against the CoC, neither I do think this is spam.
DeleteAs a Dutch citizen I was especially impressed how the US leads in promoting international justice.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court
Cutting economic assistance to countries that do not support the ICC and providing troops to physically secure indicted persons.
Just joking.. :-) I'm glad we are allies..
As the irony may not be apparent.. the reality is that the US has cut economic assistance to countries that do support the ICC and has made a law to use military force to release US government personal from the ICC if any would actually end up there.
DeleteStill that was the Bush administration, the Obama administration has improved on this point.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/18/world/africa/congo-war-crimes/index.html
Please feel free to back up your statements with references.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the US has made some bad decisions and done some bad things in the past, no doubt.
I do feel that some of the examples that you have given are just as inaccurate as the "history" told in our textbooks. If you have good, verifiable references, then I think that a good dialog can be started and minds can be convinced. Until then it sounds like you've bought the liberal side of the story, hook, line and sinker.
And yes, I'm commenting Anonymously. Should I stand up and be counted? Sure. At the cost to my family right now in this media environment, no thanks!
The American people are good persons. I have many good american friends. But you live in a bubble; some examples:
ReplyDeleteBaseball world series: the world is composed of Milwaukee, San Francisco, Boston! It ignores the fact of world class baseball in Cuba, Panama, Venezuela.
There is a country south of the US: it's called México and you can have nice vacations there. The rest is called South America and is a nation.
Citizens of the US call themselves americans. People all over the continent are americans. You are US citizens. Argentinians, Hondurans, Salvadoreans, US citizens are all americans.
A quarter of a century ago (times of first Rambo movies) we still looked at you as world leaders. There is a new social movement, a new technology: let's listen to what the US has to say, how they manage it, how they teach their people about it. We were mad at your actions around the world, but we still looked at you for your opinion. Now we look somewhere else, we first hear ourselves. We hear you sometimes as one hears another family's baby crying. It is annoying but is someone else's problem.
Let me finish as I started. The American people are good people. I think you just have to get your education and information from diverse sources to form an opinion. The world is always in need of a leader. You have had that position. You can still have it. We will be grateful.
If you're going to worry about "facts" and "whitewashing", you might want to mention that with Iraq, a tyrant was overthrown who had killed around a million of his own citizens. You might want to mention that the country now has democratic self rule.
ReplyDeleteI'm more concerned about the U.S. support of Saddaam Hussein in decades past. For that matter, the recent drone strikes the U.S. is sending out seem pretty bad. These don't have U.N. support, nor support from the local governments. Nor have they been reviewed and supported by the internal U.S. processes. We just have an ego-inflated president issuing kill orders, in many cases for small children.
In short, the U.S. is a pretty gruesome organization in all kinds of ways. I don't see anything special about the Iraq war, though. It seems a lot nicer than many of the things the U.S. does before and since.
"You might want to mention that the country now has democratic self rule."
ReplyDeleteAnd ever since then, they've been killing each other off in place of their terrible tyrant. Saddam was a mass-murdering asshole and can probably be found in the ninth circle of hell if hell exists, yes, but he was one of the only forces holding that country together. People often forget that... just about as often as they forget the Iraq war altogether whenever they hear about Iran in the news and are perfectly content to let history repeat itself yet again.