The following is copied from another email.
The writer makes a lot of sense. I don't think he has the whole picture,
but his arguments are worth listening to.
-----------------------------
At the risk of sounding like an apologist for a despicable act, I would
like to provide some possibilities for understanding the roots of this
tragedy:
1. We Americans, comprising some 4% of the world's population, consume
approximately 40% of its resources. We appear to assume that the
resources found in other parts of the world are somehow our birthright.
Imagine how this is experienced in third world countries, many of whom
have been the recipient of United States military attacks.
2. We maintain this consumption, in large part, because we have the most
powerful military in the world, and since WW II we have not hesitated to
use it for political and/or economic gain in places like China (1945-46),
Korea (1950-53), China (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958),
Cuba
(1959-60), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73),
Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Guatemala (1967-69), Grenada
(1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama
(1989), Iraq (1991-present), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998) and
Yugoslavia (1999). We
have bombed each of these countries in turn, and in NO case did a
democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct
result. Through our weapons and/or proxies, innocent civilians of
Indonesia, East Timor, Chile, Nicaragua and Palestine have also been
victims of the United States. Is it any wonder that the level of hatred
of the United States is so high? Former President Jimmy Carter stated,
"We have only to go to Lebanon, to Syria, to Jordan, to witness firsthand
the intense hatred among many people for the United States, because we
bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers,
women and children and farmers and housewives, in those villages around
Beirut...as a result, we have become a kind of Satan in the minds of
those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of
hostages and that is what has precipitated some terrorist attacks." (New
York Times3/26/89)
3. Forty-nine percent of our income tax dollar goes for present and past
military-related activities. On April 16, 1953, former President Dwight
Eisenhower noted that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who
hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." For the
cost of a Stealth bomber, we could put an additional teacher or social
worker in every middle and high school in the United States. The cost of
the proposed missile defense shield would add several more. Which of
these options would add most to our national security?
In short, I believe that we are paying a terrible price for a very
shortsided and egocentric American political and economic worldview, and
unless we change this worldview, I am concerned that yesterday's tragedy
will be only a down payment on the retribution yet to come.
***************
Bill Thomson is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a faculty
member at the University of Michigan/Dearborn, where he teaches a course
in Nonviolence and Violence.
-------------------------------------------------
I cannot understand the "49%" figure in #3; I would think that to be some
creative accounting. The write also does not "give us credit" for some of
those military actions mentioned in #2, which were to defend others. But
his arguments are not without merit.
John Burgeson (Burgy)
http://www.burgy.50megs.com
(science/theology, quantum mechanics, baseball, ethics,
humor, cars, God's intervention into natural causation, etc.)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Sep 18 2001 - 13:09:38 EDT