By Gary G. Kohls, MD
Q: Why do They Hate us so Much?
A: It Isn’t Because of our Disappearing Freedoms, That’s for Sure!
I remember shaking my head in frustration when, back in 2001, President George Bush the Lesser asked the title question above and then answered it himself disingenuously promoting the absurd idea that the alleged perpetrators of 9/11 were jealous of our alleged freedoms and therefore want to destroy us. The question was appropriate. Bush’s answer was ridiculous.
I recall deciding that the shadowy figures that did Dubya’s thinking for him at the time were dictating to him what he was to say in public. Certainly Bush wasn’t in charge of his administration’s policy-making. The group in charge was most likely to be Dick Cheney and his NeoCon/PNAC pals that included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al.
Cunning pathological liars that the members of that group soon proved themselves to be, I was certain that they were trying to distract the public’s attention from the 9/11 Keystone Kops false flag operation that made scores of mistakes that should have resulted in them immediately being arrested on multiple charges of treason and mass murder and the promise of long jail times for the lot of them).
Bush’s little Q & A that day followed by the steady stream of White House-generated disinformation (that was dutifully regurgitated by the fawning mainstream media and believed as truth by gullible media consumers) successfully over-shadowed the realities that should have been obvious to every clear-headed observer: that jet planes, brief fireballs and the transient, rapidly self-extinguishing office fires that followed, had nothing whatever to do with the multiple explosions, the cutter charges that severed the massive steel beams into easily transportable chunks, the pulverization of the two towers into fine pyroclastic dust or the collapses, at free-fall speed, of the three World Trade Center towers on 9/11/01.
The documented finding of military-grade nanothermite all over the Manhattan 9/11 dust should have clinched the argument that Osama bin Laden could have had nothing to do with the controlled demolitions that brought down the towers. That part of the events of 9/11 had to involve insiders.
It is essential to note that it is a scientific impossibility for planes and/or fires to bring down modern steel-reinforced skyscrapers. The only thing that can demolish modern over-engineered, fire-proofed buildings (that are made of non-flammable steel, non-flammable concrete and nan-flammable glass) is controlled demolition utilizing pre-planted high-tech explosives. Bringing down skyscrapers requires weeks of planning, ready access to the buildings, carefully planting the explosive charges and sequencing the explosions. World class experience is also essential.to bring down tall buildings directly into their footprints. Only a handful of such companies exist in the world today. None were subpoenaed to appear before the 9/11 Commission.
Knowing that there was something fishy going on and not trusting the nefarious, pro-war, oil-greedy characters that had just stolen the 2000 election (with the help of the 5 conservatives on the Supreme Court). I knew there was another explanation for 9/11. Dubya had once famously mangled the old truism, “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” That group had already fooled us all more times than you could count, and I didn’t just start on 9/11/01. So, accepting the veracity of that saying, I immediately and forever after disbelieved everything that that group ever said again.
Drone warfare has escalated since Obama succeeded Bush as the “Current Occupant”
Yesterday and the day before that were days just like so many others in the many US-invaded and illegally occupied foreign nations where we have American troops and CIA agencies. Drones are being deployed by the CIA and Air Force in sovereign nations where the US has no ethical right to be. These death-dealing drones are committing extrajudicial assassinations in the name of us American citizens, and we will wind up being the eventual targets of retaliation, even though we had nothing to do with the original killing.
The appropriately named – and very grim – “Reaper” drones that fire “Hellcat” missiles – along with the infamous and deadly night raids that have terrorized, killed and maimed many innocent and unarmed civilians in foreign lands are sending greetings of death to poor women and children in remote Pakistani, Afghani, Iraqi or Yemeni villages. You can be certain that those acts of criminality will never be forgotten.
Other than US assassination squads, why do they hate us? Shall we count the ways?
The rest of the non-“christian” world is nervously expecting the fickle finger of fate to point at them next. Drone-making corporations are trying to expand their lucrative markets domestically, so, as Pogo might have implied, the next targets could be us. All of these potential victims are justifiably fearful that they may be the next helpless targets of some post-adolescent X-Box gamer who knows his way around a joystick. There must be an inexhaustible supply of similar conscienceless armchair warriors who are used to killing by remote control, firing missiles at computer screen targets – guiltlessly doing the job by obeying lethal orders from up the chain of command.
The Commandant of Auschwitz, SS Lt. Col. Rudolf Hoess, never personally killed anyone at Auschwitz. Just like Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Goebbels and Eichmann, Hoess never experienced the psychologically and spiritually devastating reality of having literal blood from a dying human smear on their hands. They did however, have figurative blood all the way up to their armpits. And so do the joystick drone boys and their commanding officers.
All of those virtual killers thought that they were just doing their job at the office, planning invasions or battles or playing with a joystick in front of a computer screen half a planet away. They didn’t really appreciate that they were committing crimes against humanity. The homicidal violence and the gruesome blood-letting that they were responsible for were so abstract for them that they didn’t think that they might someday have to take legal responsibility for their actions.
Thomas Merton, in his powerful prose poem, “Chant to be Used in Processions Around a Site with Furnaces” has Rudolf Hoess point his fingers at his accusers as he was about to be hung on the gallows overlooking Auschwitz:
“Do not think yourself better because you burn up friends and enemies with long-range missiles without ever seeing what you have done.”
The message on the Statue of Liberty has been rendered obsolete
America was once regarded as the land of the free and the brave. No longer. The most racist, militaristic and xenophobic (and therefore fascist) of America’s current crop of leaders have transformed the nation into the number 1 manufacturer, gun-runner and possessor of the most lethal collection of long-range killing machines in the history of the world. The American military spends more money on inedible weapons of mass destruction than the rest of world’s largest industrialized nations combined, even though it represents only 5% of the world’s population – and with the willingness to use them against whomever. We are understandably the most feared and hated group of people in the entire universe.
These mis-leaders have made a mockery of the once-proud Statue of Liberty, the symbol of hope for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse, the homeless and tempest-tossed. To many observers around the world, America has hypocritically degenerated into the paranoid scourge of mankind that has been usurped by the greedy 1%, the corporate exploiters, the ruling elite, the greedy banksters, the militarists and the corrupt crony capitalists. America is not being hated for its freedoms, but for the way it has turned against freedom and shredded its Constitution.
Most of America’s current pro-war leaders have figurative blood on their hands. Many of them meet the definition of ChickenHawk, those who enjoy war and love to start wars as long as they don’t have to be the ones who fight them; and they are currently doing nothing to stop the death and destruction that is raining down upon “suspects” and innocent civilians (“collateral damage”) in sovereign nations.
Most of those victims are yellow, brown or black-skinned folks of non-christian faiths and they are being cavalierly fingered as suspected enemies deserving of death without getting a jury trial. Oftentimes the only “offence” they are guilty of is the fact that their land happens to be on top of oil, precious metals, minerals, water or other resources that greedy transnational exploiters covet and therefore must acquire, by hook or by crook. There is plenty to fear and loathe in that group.
Imperialist nations that murder innocent women and children in poor villages overseas usually also bribe tribal or national leaders to temporarily buy their cooperation to help do the crimes. Such exploitive nations routinely supply, support and engage murderous mercenary soldiers, spies and secret police as well as the usual unsavory politicians in the target nations. Empires and their collaborators deserve their assigned title of “Great Satan” or “Evil Empire”. One should expect that the American Empire will be treated as an evil one.
Viewing the Stars and Stripes but seeing Swastikas
When oppressed, exploited and therefore angry foreigners view the Stars and Stripes fluttering over US embassies or the hundreds of US military bases scattered everywhere around the globe (built on land that had been stolen against the will of the people that had previously owned the property), who can blame them if they see Swastika?
Certainly the tortured prisoners at Guantanamo (most of them are innocent and have never even been charged with any crime) who have been cleared for release from their hell-hole but are still incarcerated, see Swastika instead of the US flag flying over their concentration camp. Unjust punishment and torture are powerful ways to generate undying hatred for the perpetrators.
What the brutal, obedient soldiers of the hated Nazis did to the Poles, the Norwegians, the Belgians, the French, the Czechs, the Austrians, the Russians, the Jews, and the anti-fascist resisters all over Europe felt no different to the victims than what the brutal, obedient soldiers from “democratic” nations like America have been similarly doing all over the world. The fascist and racist “Lebensraum” policy of Germany (regarded by Hitler as “pre-ordained by providence”) was not much different from America’s policy of “Manifest Destiny” which resulted in the genocide of each and every native American tribe.
What part of “Yankee Go Home” can’t we comprehend?
People all around the world see much more clearly than us Americans that the non-whites and the non-Christians are the ones that are most likely to be victimized by the full military and economic force of the US Empire.
And the pleas of “Yankee Go Home” from the displaced, homeless, starving and terrorized civilian victims of our endless – and bankrupting – global wars have fallen on deaf ears. Those in positions of power close their ears to the wisdom in the pleas to “Support the Troops by Bringing them Home out of Harm’s Way”. There is just too much money to be made in the insane “blow it up/build it up” mentality of the ruling elite who have heavy investments in the weapons and construction industries.
Since 9/11/01 the Pentagon has been spending around two billion dollars per day on its war-preparation and war-making activities (2 billion times 365 = $730 billion per year, which is actually a little less than the actual annual Pentagon budget). Some say most of it is going down the bloated Pentagon toilet. More tens of billions are spent on the Department of Energy, which deals with the military’s nuclear weapons.
Taxing and borrowing and then spending so much money on our already bloated military can’t be sustained. Veterans’ retirement and healthcare benefits and paying for the total care of our permanently disabled veterans is going to break the bank. In addition, the hundreds of billions of dollars of annual interest payments on past war debts (going back to the Reagan years) will continue to be paid out to any number of already rich folks, corporate war profiteers, bond fund investors and foreign and domestic banks.
Brutality and injustice breeds hatred for the perpetrators and a powerful desire for justice for the abused and retribution against the oppressor.
We shouldn’t have to wonder why most of the rest of the world hates empires, and those of us benefitting from the American brand of empire can’t expect to be treated any differently.
What should worry most of us is that the guilty ones that got us into this mess may not be the ones who pay for their crimes against humanity. We innocents may wind up being the ones who pay.