On August 6, 1945, the biggest act of mass murder in a single hour in human history took place when a US airplane dropped a nuclear bomb on citizens living in the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later the second greatest act of mass murder took place when another US plane dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan.
An estimated total of 80,000 to 16o,000, perhaps 15% to 25% of the population, died on the first day in Hiroshima and some 60,000 – to 80,000 died in Nagasaki on the first day. Countless numbers of civilians, men, women and children died agonising deaths in the days, weeks, months and years from radiation sickness, burns and from their injuries.
Studies show that the US military is directly responsible for the deaths of some 20,000,000 people around the world since the nuclear bombing of the two Japanese cities. Studies show that the USA has invaded or undermined the sovereign independence of more than 40 countries
We, who live outside of the USA, can object. We can remind Americans frequently why they are disliked so intensely, if not hated. Nazi Germany invaded 14 countries. We demanded to know why thoughtful German citizens did little or nothing to stop the rise and spread of Nazism. The same principle applies today to US.
Why do the vast majority of Americans choose to keep quiet?
We barely hear a word of protest from the vast, vast majority of US citizens, who seem to prefer worship of the $$$, obsession with celebrity culture, going to the shopping mall and playing computer war games.
There is a general acknowledgement that for every person that dies in war, another 10-20 are wounded or injured and another 20 to 30 are traumatised. There are literally hundreds of millions of men, women and children who have suffered terribly due to the direct orders of the White House and the Senate.
There are small but still obscene attacks as well. Every Tuesday morning in the White House, President Barack Obomber signs papers to authorise the use of drones and other weapons for the assassination of suspected leaders and active supporters and their families of Al Qaeda and other similar Arab organisations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere. The President, the government and the CIA have no regard for the rule of law and basic human rights to a trial.
The unmanned drones employ infrared cameras enabling them to see their targets and families at home in their villages. Called the Predator, a drone sends missiles, called Hellfire into their homes to wipe out the suspect and anyone else in the household . CIA operatives in the Pentagon target their victims from their computer screens. These attacks as well as US occupation becomes the breeding ground for terror.
Doesn’t the US media allow an honest assessment of US foreign policy? Since 1945, the US government has targeted numerous governments and their citizens who uphold a different system of governance from capitalism and the cult of individualism. The US government employs the CIA, spies, death squads, torture, corruption, exploitation, environmental destruction and terror to ensure the collapse and dissolution of various governments, opposition parties, political groups and dissidents.
It has used every possible strategy from rendition, centres for torture, psychological and physical, threats, bullying, blackmail as well as bombs, massacres, and every kind of sophisticated weapon imaginable on foreign armies and citizens, mostly poor and ill equipped.
Why do so many countries dislike America so much?
Is it the lack of soul-searching in the USA that remains so disheartening? Is it a general inability of the people to question their government, both Democrat and Republican. Is ther a perverse depth of naivety? Are US citizens out of touch with the suffering and anguish of people outside North America?
Yes, there are online bold media exceptions in the USA such as Truth Out, Nation of Change and Democracy Now, Wikileaks, Noam Chomsky, Bradley Manning and women, men and organisations in the USA who work hard day after day with a single vision to see the back of Capitalism, Corporatism and Militarism and set people, within the USA as well as elsewhere , free from the tyranny of capitalism, the myth and the lie of the “American dream,” except for an elite, and the cult of individualsm.
It is obviously very hard to have precise figures of the numbers who have died due to wars launched since 1945 by the USA. Some nations may exaggerate the death toll. Others may wish to minimise. Other countries don’t know. They may not even have the infrastructure to find out. We do know the number that died in the Holocaust. We know the number of Russians who died in World War 2. We know the number of US servicemen and women who died in the war on the people of Vietnam. We can have confidence in the figure of approximately 20,000,000.
The USA has exported the manufacture of every device possible from war planes, weapons to surveillance equipment to torture techniques, as well as offering military training, to men and women in uniform of brutal regimes, as long as that regime submitted to the will of the USA.
Here is the list of countries that the USA has attacked directly, indirectly or manipulated a war between nations or civil wars to ensure influence. The list includes overthrows of governments brought about by the CIA, coup d’états, of elected or unelected governments, who refuse to be obedient to the will of the USA government and its corporate interests.
Currently, the USA has bases in 63 countries. The US army also killed 63 Afro American citizens in the Detroit riots of 1967. Here is a fairly full list of the countries suffered under the US war machine and its subversive agencies.
- Afghanistan
- Angola
- Argentina
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Cambodia
- Chad
- Chile
- Columbia
- Congo (formerly Zaire)
- Cuba
- Detroit (USA)
- Dominican Republic
- East Timor
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Ghana
- Grenada.
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Hungary
- Indonesia
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Korea
- Kuwait
- Laos
- Libya
- Nicaragua
- Pakistan
- Palestine
- Paraguay
- Philippines
- Venezuela
- Serbia
- Somalia
- Sudan
- Syria
- Yemen
- Yugoslavia
It is sad also that US citizens never seem to protest about the 20 million deaths. NATO and the UK have acted frequently as agents for the USA. Citizens here also keep quiet.
Do American citizens have an unreal picture of their government?
There seems to be a preference in the USA to live in the daily naivety that we, Americans, are good people. We are civilised. We don’t commit mass murder. We don’t use weapons of mass destruction. We don’t make war at the cost of the lives of two million Vietnamese people in their villages. We don’t use chemicals like Agent Orange to destroy entire environments. We don’t arm regimes who invade their neighbours or keep their population living in fear. We don’t use corporations like Monsanto to try to control the world’s food supply or our energy companies to control the world’s oil fields. We don’t use drones to assassinate families. We don’t torture people. We are Americans. We don’t do that.
The US led wars and killings will continue as long as long as US citizens remain silent.
A free human being must ask two dangerous questions.
Does the US government, the military and their corporatations have a similar mind set as other power mad idelogoies in the past – to maximise control over as much of the world as possible?
The USA has brought down the governments of more than 40 countries, possibly far more, since 1945. It leaves us with a further question.
Isn’t it time for American citizens to co-operate to overthrow their government, both Democrat and Republican? There are a whole arsenal of non-violent strategies for this.
MAY ALL BEINGS LIVE
WITH WISDOM AND COMPASSION