What ever you want to believe.
Same to ya .....
I for one am very tired of hearing us blamed for everything wrong in the world.
Sorry - but I have never gone there - I there is no way I possibly could - because I know that would be
untrue.
However, just as you are tired of the above, I am tired of the
"America-can-do-no-wrong" crowd - those who
refuse to take an honest look - and engage in a rational analysis - and attempt to deflect the attention away from the real issue:
Are some of the things that we are doing making things better - or are they actually making it worse ?
Such a position is
the height of irresponsibility - and is the epitome of someone who refuses to admit any culpability for the current state of affairs within the world.
It's an
"it's-all-their-fault" ... an
"it-doesn't have-anything to-do-with-me" position .... which is sheer lunacy, if from no other standpoint than mere survival.
None of what I read or hear matches to what I learned over a lifetime. But, that's ok, it's all our fault, all we have to do is go away and the world will be perfect. Russia is not involved, China is not involved, North Korea is not involved, just us. We did it all.
That is an utterly disingenuous attempt to twist my position, and no doubt the position of many, many others.
If you really want to inform yourself of the actual present situation (rather than relying on assumptions about
how things might be, based on some stale-dated knowledge and experiences from back in
the good old days) I would suggest that for starters, you might want to pickup several books by
Micheal Scheurer (<--- click for link), among them:
Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq
Imperial Hubris: Why The West Is Losing The War On Terror (<--- click for link)
He has a third, more recent book -
Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America - which I have not read yet - that ought to provide some interesting insights from a slightly more current perspective.
Considering that Mr Scheurer was a 22 year veteran analyst of the CIA, was specifically focused on the Middle East and the emerging Islamist terrorist threat, and was the guy that
formed and headed (Chief of) the Bin Laden Issue Station, he might just have some unique insights on the nature of things in the Middle East, the Islamist Threat, and what is driving it.
It isn't a pretty picture - and if we allow things continue as they have (meaning our actions specifically), it is likely to get much, much worse - with us having contributed to, and enabled,
pretty much the entirety of the Islamic world to become radicalized against us.
I have no doubt that if we just crawled into a hole that none of those "bad guys" would ever do anything like they have been doing for years, their reign of rape and murder across the world is likely our fault too. Right?
UTTERLY WRONG
And of course, you know that
that isn't what I'm saying (I do assume that you are at least
bright enough .....)
But like I said - if you truly believe that we are doing
nothing in the world (I realize that such a statement is merely just an attempt to minimize culpability - and one that is, in fact,
completely ludicrous on it's face) - well then those allowing themselves the luxury of such
delusions probably have what's coming.
Me personally, I can't afford it - neither can my children, or their children, or their children's children .....
