About a week after the attacks on September 11, 2001, I began to ask myself and those around me why all this had happened. Back then, I wasn't all that into politics, and I am still in my infancy on the subject, but my gut reaction was, "What has our government done for these people to react in such a violent manner?" I knew it had nothing to do with our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, separation of church and state or any other freedom for that matter. I knew it had nothing to do with the American people but had everything to do with the American government. And if I were one to keep a diary, that is exactly what my entries during that time would have said.
So why are so many Americans upset with what Ron Paul had said in the debates on Tuesday night? Does the true really hurt that much, or were they interpreting him incorrectly? Rudy Giuliani's reaction alone:
"That's really an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of 9/11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I have ever heard that before, and I have heard some pretty absurd explanations for Sept. 11. I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn't really mean that."
makes me wonder if he's even competent enough to make decisions in his own home!
Are Americans really that self absorbed that we can only see what is being done to us and not what we do to others? I guess so! If that is what you think, then consider the following list of U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq:
1. The U.S. support of Saddam Hussein.
2. The U.S. furnishing of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam Hussein and the correlative assistance provided by the U.S. in the use of such weaponry.
3. The Persian Gulf intervention.
4. The intentional destruction of Iraq’s water and sewage facilities, with full knowledge as to what effect such action would have on the long-term health of the Iraqi people.
5. The more than 10 years of brutal sanctions, which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children from sickness and disease.
6. The deadly no-fly zones, which had not been authorized by either the UN or the U.S. Congress, and whose enforcement entailed the firing of missiles and the dropping of bombs that killed even more Iraqis.
7. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement to “Sixty Minutes” that reverberated throughout the Middle East that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children had been “worth it.”
8. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of more Iraqis.
9. The torture and sex abuse of Iraqi men at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq, photographs and videos of which are still being kept hidden by U.S. officials because of their potential blowback.
10. The periodic rapes and murders that some U.S. troops have committed against the Iraqi people during the occupation.
11. The arbitrary and indiscriminate searches and seizures without warrants being conducted by U.S. troops.
12. The indefinite detentions without trial of some 20,000 Iraqi men and women in overcrowded prisons.
~ steph
