There Is Still Only One Question to Ask

by James Glaser
January 30, 3007

It always bothers me what the President tries to put the hate that terrorists have for us in that nut shell of, "they hate our freedom." It is more complicated than that. We are the most powerful nation in the world, and to get to that position we have stepped on a lot of toes along the way. I don't know all the answers, but here are some thoughts on where the hate of America is coming from. I am sure there are a lot more reasons than just these.

The one question we should still be asking, is why do so many people around the world hate us so much? It isn't just the "terrorists" or members of al Qaeda who have a deep seated hate of America, it is the little guy living in a mud hut in Afghanistan, or Lebanon, maybe he is in Jordan or Vietnam. He could be in some country we never heard of, some country we never sent troops to.

In India there are thousands of people who hate America because one of our corporations killed and injured thousands when its plant exploded.

December 1984, Bhopal, India
An explosion in the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India, released a deadly gas called methyl isocyanate, which is used to make pesticides. The gas formed a cloud that killed 2,500 people; another 50,000-100,000 people became ill. Trees and plants in the area became yellow and brittle. The explosion was caused by a mechanical failure that was not noticed in time to stop it.

There are places all over this world, where America backed the despot over the people of the country. Iraq is a fine example of such a country. For years we supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons. When Saddam had his army attack Iran, Iran was using the weapons America supplied to the Shah. Both sides were killing each other with American weapons. When the students in Iran overthrew their government and took over our Embassy, they worked for over a year putting together the papers our diplomats shredded, and those papers told how we trained the Shah's Secret Police on how to torture.

America sells more weapons to third world countries than the rest of the world combined.

All over South America there are alumni of our School of the Americas, where for decades we have been teaching the art of torture to the governments in our Southern hemisphere.

The United States has military bases in a reported 150 nations, and every one of those bases has its red light district, where the pretty young women of that country can work the world's oldest trade.

Every year we hear reports of American service men raping women. It doesn't happen every week, but one rape in a country by an American can cause a lot of hate directed at our country.

Every night on television sets around the world, people see the horror of what is going on in Iraq. For decades the Muslim world has watched what Israel has been doing to Palestine, with the backing of the United States.

Most countries in the world voted to outlaw land mines, but the United States would not sign on.

December 4, 1997
Web posted at: 10:03 p.m. EST (0303 GMT)

OTTAWA (CNN) — The celebrated treaty to ban anti-personnel land mines became a reality Thursday when 121 nations signed the accord and pledged $500 million to implement it.

An estimated 60 million to 100 million mines are in place in 69 countries, and they kill or maim more than 25,000 people every year -- the equivalent of a victim every 22 minutes.

If your son or daughter is killed or maimed by a land mine and you start working in your country to get rid of them, you soon learn the United States is one of the few countries that still use them.

Millions of people are worried about global warming, and countries have worked hard to stop what they think is causing this warm up of the earth.

Environmental leaders gathered today in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan, to mark enactment of the global warming pact that bears the city's name.

The agreement, signed on to by 140 nations, but not the United States, imposes limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

These people know that America puts out more carbon dioxide emissions than any other country. By not doing anything about these emissions, and by not working with the rest of the world, we build up more hate for ourselves.

George Bush still claims that terrorists hate us because of our freedom, but I don't buy that. People the world over look at America, they look at what we have, and they look at what we do. We are the "haves," and most of the rest of the world are the "have nots." We give the world a lot of reasons to hate us. Telling us it is our freedom that they hate, is just a red herring.

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