by James Glaser
May 8, 2002

Before the attacks of September 11, America was living in "fantasy land." Nowhere else on the globe other than North America, has there been a area so untouched by war and chaos. We are so very lucky, but now that we have been attacked for this first time I feel that Americans should be told the truth about a few things.

We "yanks" are still loved be older Brits and those that can remember WW 2, but the rest of the world has it's doubts about how we handle ourselves when it comes to helping other countries. Now don't get me wrong, the USA is still at the top of my list, I just think that we citizens should take a hard look at how we have been treating the rest of the world. Being honest with yourself when making a personal assessment is hard, well that is true when assessing your country too.

Many people look at our fire bombing of Tokyo with the killing of 140,000 and the opening up of the atomic bomb as a weapon by us at Hiroshima and Nagasaki with 110.000 dying on the spot and another 230,000 dying in the next few years from radiation, as a black mark on America. Others say if there wasn't a Pearl Harbor we wouldn't of had to do that.

Since that war America has bombed twenty three nations. Author William Blum wrote: "It is sobering to reflect that in our era of instant world wide communications, the United States has, on many occasions, been able to mount a large or small scale military operation or undertake other equally blatant forms of intervention without the American public being aware of it until years later if ever."

That is just one of the reasons that Americans are so very surprised and angry that terrorists would even think of attacking us. Hey, we are the "good guys," we wear the white hats, and just think of all that foreign aid that we give away.

Oh, reports do come in about what we are doing, but they are seldom front page head lines and really nobody likes to read those Foreign Relation Quarterlies that never have any pictures or jokes. Yes it is nice to only think nice things about ourselves, but that can lead to real problems, like Sept. 11.

I must admit that for years I believed that we were on the other side of that "Evil Empire" that President Reagan talked about. I thought that we were going around the world trying to get other countries to emulate our form of government and that we were holding up the Constitution and Bill of Rights, so that all could see what we based our ideals on.

Then I joined the Marines and went to Vietnam and saw first hand that we tend to leave those white hats at the shore when we go to war. All those terrible things they say about war are true. We torture people, kill women and children, use chemical weapons on a truly massive scale, and would just as soon kill a prisoner of war than house them.

If you want to read about just the Marines and what they did, then go to Google and type in "winter soldier" and read a sampling of what we did over there. This from officers and enlisted. American veterans are still paying a high price for our use of twenty million gallons of chemicals in Vietnam. The children of veterans are now being compensated for second generation disabilities passed to them by their veteran parents. Americans, I believe have the right and duty to know what our government is doing in our names.

To this day thousands are killed each year in Vietnam by some of the 3.5 million land mines we left behind, the 300,000 tons of unexploded ordinance, not to mention the costs to the people that have lived their whole lives in the areas that we targeted with chemical weapons.

It is so sad to tell you that yes, America has had a school (at Fort Benning, Georgia), "The US Army School of the Americas," that for years has taught the leaders of South America how to subvert their people. How to start and maintain death squads to stop any chance that the people of their countries could form a new representative government. So much for passing our Constitution around for others to see.

In the Middle East we have given Israel billions in weapons to defend their home land, but have blocked every motion by other countries to send in peace keepers that would make those weapons unusable and unnecessary. In the past we have given billions to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the Shah of Iran, then there are the millions we gave the Taliban, and who knows how much the CIA funneled to Osama bin Laden. Yes, we as Americans should know these things before they come back to bite us.

I know that a lot of Americans are blinded by all of the flag waving right now, but as time passes they will have time to reflect on what our country is doing. I am confident that most Americans still believe in our Constitution and Bill of Rights and when they have some time, they will see that the assault on these two great works by President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft, are step in the wrong direction and a real victory that the Terrorists would just love.

America is too great of a country to let a few scared government officials that are feeding on fear. take those American Freedoms that have stood the test of time.