Well, looking back this morning I think I offer several of you a sincere apology. It's not hard to say you're sorry, but here goes:
I'm sorry your friends and family members died because of decades of US Imperialism around the globe that killed millions of men, women and children that helped bring about the kind of cultural resentment that made 9/11 possible. Again I'm very sorry that Uncle Sam killed your friends.
Yikes. That sounds like you're both blaming America for 9/11 and implicating the innocent people who died on 9/11 in "imperialism" so they're somehow to blame as Americans. I understand that probably sounds ridiculous to most people, but it's also the kind of boilerplate leftist anti-American gibberish you actually hear from people.
I think that would touch nerve with most people more than what you said before even. Maybe I'm just missing the joke.
He's certainly not doing the latter, but are you going to completely reject the notion that imperialism has consequences?
That's a bit tricky. The US has influenced every single country in the world and done lots of terrible things, sure. But, when it comes to 9/11, the US was the innocent victim and was in no way at fault. The US didn't cause 9/11. Just because you committed some bad action in the past, doesn't mean that you caused bad things to happen to yourself in the future. That's basically the idea that two wrongs make a right.
Why do you think Al-Qaeda picked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Capitol/White House to attack? Also what makes 9/11 worse than military attacks-sanctioned by governments-on civilian populations? How many innocent people died in the firebombings of Tokyo and other cities in Japan (to say nothing of our country having the distinction of being the only one ever to use nuclear weapons on not one, but TWO cities).
Nobody is denying that 9/11 was a horrific atrocity. But I don't see why we-the people of the United States-shouldn't at least
question the long history of the United States government (as well as transnational corporations, which the US dominates) doing horrible things, ostensibly in
our name. Or how the United States' economic, military, political, cultural, and ideological power have all worked against the interests of other countries and cultures-again, all in the name of American ideals. Yes, we do a lot of good things as well, but again, what is "good" by American standards is assumed to be good for the rest of the world.
Now, you could just chalk this all up to the US acting in its own interests as the world's superpower.
But there's also the unfortunate reality that we do not live up to our own ideals, which is true in international relations as well as in our domestic politics. Thus, we get accused of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness-and there's definitely a significant deal of truth to that accusation.
All of this is to say; even though the US dominates the world, our perceptions of the world (and ourselves) are by no means universal. That is something we have to collectively understand. People outside the US both love us and hate us-the natural consequence of being the sole superpower.
Hope that made sense.
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