During President Trump’s recent appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly was startled by the President’s respect for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
O’Reilly remarked to Trump that Putin was a killer, and Trump replied by saying, “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Trump’s response to O’Reilly was unprecedented. For a US President to acknowledge the complicity and unscrupulousness of the United States, and compare the blood on the hands of the United States to Russia, is surprising indeed.
On the other hand, history corroborates that the United States is not angelic, either domestically or internationally, as it relates to the treatment of its own citizens or foreign citizens, who fortuitously resided in the wrong country at the wrong time in history!
A possible example of the United States’ lack of innocence is the multi-year war in Iraq. The United States militarily intervened in Iraq under the so-called justification of Iraq’s former dictator possessing weapons of mass destruction. In reality, this propaganda was a “weapon of mass deception”, which cost US taxpayers $1.7 trillion, much of which was allocated towards the assassination of 170,410-189,973 Iraqis, and over 4,500 Americans!
I am sure that a significant amount of the casualties in Iraq are just typical people that are seeking survival. They don’t possess weapons of mass destruction, aren’t conspiring to attack the United States, nor do they have the military or technological capabilities to do so.
Additionally, over 31,000 civilians were killed in Afghanistan since 2001. The evident reason for the US intervention in Afghanistan was to locate Osama bin Laden, destabilize the Taliban, and defeat the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization.
Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are apolitical laymen who are not aware of the fact that Osama bin Laden, and the Bin Laden family, were allies of the United States government during the Cold War era; specifically, during the proxy war in Afghanistan, which was an effort to defeat communism.
The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, gained power in 1978 after the Saur Revolution which overthrew the government of Mohammed Daoud. Consequently, during the Christmas season of 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; this led to the United States funding, and training, various Islamic factions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and throughout the Arab World.
The unified collective of these groups was designated as the “Mujahadeen” and its major leaders were people that are now classified as terrorists: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar; and the murdered terrorist, and former U.S. ally… you guessed it – Osama Bin Laden! Hekmatyar alone received $600 million in US aid, and has a notorious reputation for his concentrated military bombardments that killed at least 1000 civilians in 1993.
Another example of America’s lack of innocence internationally is Operation Odyssey Dawn: the NATO bombardment of Libya in 2011, where there was an innumerable amount of deaths from unintended casualties.In addition to Libya, there are the innocent civilian casualties of drone strikes in Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan!
In 2016, the United States dropped an incredible 26,171 bombs which, when calculated, comes to 3 bombs per hour!
In closing, there are a plethora of examples of the United States’ “lack of innocence”, but the few that are mentioned here should be enough to substantiate the abdication of the moral high ground, by the power structure of the country.
All unjustifiable assassinations are implicitly and unequivocally unjust, whether it’s from the United States or Russia.
Baruti Libre
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