You have to understand something - your point of view is spoon fed to you by your government and your media, like it or not. You are raised and educated in a country that has brainwashed you into believing that your so-called democracy and your so-called freedom of speech is constantly under threat from someone. If there is no real enemy, one will be invented for you. The Taliban? This is what the Wall Street Journal said about the Taliban as recently as 1996 (around the time Clinton administration officials and oil company executives were entertaining Taliban leaders in Washington and Texas) - "The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they were crucial to secure the country as a prime trans-shipment route for the export of Central Asia's vast oil, gas and other natural resources". Your government uses who it wants, when it wants, to get what it wants. It creates regimes in order to later exercise it's war machine against them. Throughout the 1980s, US administrations spent billions of dollars FUNDING the Islamic holy war or jihad by Mujaheddin fighters against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul in order to undermine the "Reds". You dont think the US profited from September 11th? September 12th, the US military's biggest supplier, Lockheed Martin's share value rose by 30 per cent. THE NEXT DAY! Whilst the entire stock exchange crashed, other notable rises included other military manufacturing giants such as Alliant Tech Systems, Northrop Gruman, Raytheon, etc.
The US censors and imposes sanctions on any country developing nuclear weapons, yet is the only country ever to have used them. It forces other countries to ratify the Nuclear Test ban Treaty, but refuses to sign itself. The US also imposes sanctions against any country developing biological and chemical weapons, yet has the worlds largest stockpile itself, some 30,000 tons, and refuses to sign the UN Biological Weapons Treaty. The US imposes sanctions like others change their underwear - in 1998 alone, the US had economic sanctions against 52% of the worlds population!!! In Vietnam you carpet bombed 3 entire countries, killing an estimated 3,000,000 civilians. At the end of the Gulf War, the US bombed a unarmed convoy killing 150,000 Iraqi's who had surrended days earlier and were no threat to anyone - just refugees. So yes, I stand by what I said earlier. 4000 lives in WTC was NOTHING. The US military is 250% bigger that than the next NINE possible enemies combined. THERE ARE NO MORE ENEMIES!!!! And still your government wants you to feel threatened. The Russian Threat, the Chinese Threat, the Cuban Threat, the Terrorist Threat...YOU STILL WONDER WHY PEOPLE FEEL THREATENED BY THE US?!?!?! Why certain factions are carrying out terrorist attacks against US targets? It's pretty damn clear to me. And this is just military - DONT get me started on environment and trade.
Bush's claims to hunt terrorists wherever they may be is laughable. You want terrorists? The US is a haven for terrorists. The military leader of the El Salvador death squads that murdered 10's of thousands in the 80's, now lives comfortably in Florida. The former Haitian dictator, Prosper Avril, well known torturer and murderer, was flown to Florida by the US government, and granted political asylum. A leading member of the Chilean military during the reign of General Pinochet, whose special responsibility was executions and torture, lives in Miami. The Iranian general who ran notorious prisons, is a wealthy exile in the US. One of Pol Pot's senior henchmen, who enticed Cambodian exiles back to their certain death, lives in Mount Vernon, New York. All these people either worked directly for the US government or carried out the dirty work of US policies. You think al-Qaeda is bad? Fort Benning, Georgia, aka the University of Terrorism, aka the School of the Americas. Graduates include almost half the cabinet ministers of the genocidal regimes in Guatemala, two thirds of the El Salvadorean army officers who committed the worst atrocities of that country's civil war, and the head of Pinochet's secret police, who ran Chile's concentration camps.
Kyle, you owe it to yourself to GET INFORMED about this shit dude. I know most of the above probably just spilled out and doesn'tread well, but it is all FACT. Research it, any of it. I am not making it up! Dont take everything you read and hear your goverment as gospel, they LIE TO YOU!!!! You talk about unneccessary violence? It is what drives your economy, and your country. Make no mistake, it is a VERY profitable business. The US military budget is enough to end all primary causes of poverty in the world. But hey, how profitable would that be?
Edit to add : I know it is not very cool in the US to be seen as unpatriotic. But surely it is a greater patriot who stands up and acknowledges that their government is wrong and wants to do something about it, than the ones who just nod their heads and follows the party line...?
Also, as Rob says, none of this means you are gonna lose Lux friends, or be targetted. Well, no more than usual anyway
