KOK Edit: Your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM)
KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) KOK Edit: your favorite copyeditor since 1984(SM) Katharine O'Moore Klopf
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Monday, September 11, 2006

U.S. Imperialism

Five years ago, on September 16, my youngest son was born. He lives in a land of privilege, a land whose citizens can't fathom why people of other nations hate them.

Somewhere in Iraq, there is a child who was born five years ago, in a land whose citizens can't fathom why the Americans invaded their country. Both children are precious and should be protected. But it's hard for the Iraqi child's mother to protect him; his father was killed in a raid by American troops, and all that's left of his family's home is rubble. He goes to bed whimpering in fear each night; my son falls asleep quickly, trusting that nothing bad will happen to him.

Things might not be this way if the Bush administration hadn't incited enough hatred worldwide to create more terrorists. And if earlier U.S. administrations hadn't thought it necessary, over the years, to help place specific leaders into power in some nations. And if U.S. businesses hadn't thought it necessary to expand into other nations; expansions bring along with them features of American culture that sometimes are in wild contrast to the cultures of those nations and so bring unsettling changes and sometimes fear and hatred.

I cannot understand the attitude that other nations should become more like the U.S. That attitude has caused generations worldwide to suffer. When will the suffering end?




1 comment:

TFLS said...

I cannot understand why so many people here in America support Bush's lunacy. Did someone drop them on their heads when they were infants? Are they mentally impaired? There seems to be a hard-core 30% that despite the evidence of their own eyes believe the swill he's been shoveling. What on earth is wrong with them? My husband says he works with people exactly like that - racist, hate-filled hard-core Bush is god people. He eats lunch at his desk rather than the break room to avoid circular arguments. I really don't get it. I really don’t get it at all.

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