"You know, people who commit such acts do them because they feel
horribly disenfranchised and completely between a rock and a hard
place. Find the exact people responsible for this act on the WTC,
and work to make the situations better for the rest-so that they
won't feel the need to commit such acts in the future. "
Laura Gharazeddine
DING DING DING! Laura is onto something here. What situations could those
people be in that they hate the U.S. so much?
Our Democratic Republic (not a democracy) has for the last 40 or 50 years
advanced certain foreign policies that at times have been manipulative, selfish
and extortionist in nature. The Government that represents us to the world has
supported Dictators in South and Central America and aided unscrupulous
governments (like Iran vs. Iraq) wage war to protect our "National Interests"
a.k.a. favorable conditions for our large corporations. Then we abandon them
when they no longer serve our needs or fail to obey us (Manuel Noriega). In
1973 we and the Australians basically gave Indonesia permission to invade East
Timor and wipe out 1/3 of the population. Home of the free? We ran to Kuwait's
aid to protect our "National Interests" (big oil) in '91, yet dragged our feet
for years before we helped the Croats and Bosnians. Tibet? Forget it. Americans
don't drink Yak milk.
The US Govt is big. So big sometimes parts of it dont know what other parts
are doing. Some of what are Government has done has been good. Lots of it,
while well intentioned has had less than perfect results. At times we are
meddling hypocrites and some of our Governments activities are just plain
criminal (death squads and Sandanistas).
Our Government has abused and pissed off a lot of people in the world. What we
got yesterday was a big slap in the face (but not justifiable) for some past
bad behavior.
Unfortunately, many innocent people were murdered. Hopefully their deaths will
not be wasted. If all we get out of the media and our leaders in the next few
weeks is a bunch of flag waving rhetoric about how great America is and that we
need to kick some ass to show how strong we are, then their lives will be
wasted. If there is a serious review of our recent world behavior and we start
to PRACTICE the ideals set down in our Constitution for Individual Liberty and
personal responsibility ALL the time when we deal with other Nations, then
maybe the US wouldnt be so resented in some parts of the world.
Id guess the Taliban or other Muslim group attacked us for our Gulf War/ big
oil dealings and our support of Israel. Why do we support Israel and not help
Tibet? Both religions are under attack.
We need to go back to George Washingtons position; Friendly to all, entangled
with none. We need to get out of the UN, NATO, SETO and the rest of the
alphabet soup we are cursed with. Let Europeans deal with their problems, and
the same for the middle east, Asia, Africa. Lets mind our own business. The
Libertarian Party (www.LP.org) has always proposed this type of foreign policy.
Individuals would be free to support or oppose any cause they want outside our
borders, but our Government remains neutral.
Our Government should not be protecting large US based Corporations from the
consequences of their actions in "host" countries either.
What happened yesterday was tragic, but not unexpected if you follow the news.
How many of you monitor our governments behavior and hold our leaders
accountable? How many of you have written to your elected officials on ANY
issue? How many of you vote?
We the Citizens of the US need to PARTICIPATE and monitor our Government's
activites more closely. We need to ensure they act on principle and not out of
selfishness. When they make an error we need to point it out to them even if it
means going to the effort of protesting WTO/ Seattle style. Hopefully our
future global conduct will be beyond reproach and no one will feel justified in
striking at us.
Jason Constantino
Flames for my bonnet anyone?
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