The United States has become, without a doubt, the most presumptive nation on the face of the Earth. We are in the business of presuming that this country has a legitimate right to interfere with the governments of any country that does not live up to our expectations. We presume that we have a right to actively seek “regime change” toward nations that oppose our foreign or economic policies. We presume that we, above all other nations, have a right to build and control the largest nuclear arsenal on the face of the planet, while we actively seek sanctions against those that may hint about nuclear ambitions. The U.S. presumes that our concerns are justified, and under the microscope of public opinion, accepted by the majority of people that believe in “moral integrity”.
We presume that Israel has a right to exist. We presume that Kurdistan doesn’t. We presume that Israel can research and build a nuclear arsenal but Iran cannot. We also presume the world is oblivious to the fact that the United States spends more than the next 46 countries combined on its military. We callously toss phrases such as “nuclear pre-emptive military strike” and publicly announce that we keep the use of nuclear weapons “on the table”. We presume that the United Nations has a right and an obligation to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in every nation save our own and the countries that are aligned with us. America presumes that the rest of the world doesn’t see the hypocrisy of our foreign policies.
Our government stands firmly against “terrorists” and “terrorism”. We decry the use of chemical and biological weapons by other nations. When the United Nations outlawed the use of napalm and white phosphorus we gladly signed on. We also presumed that the ban on these weapons didn’t include America. We presumed that the world wouldn’t notice as we slaughtered men, women and children in Falluja with white phosphorus in 2005, leaving behind melted bodies wrapped in undamaged clothes.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1228
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-forces-used-chemi...
Saddam Hussein was executed for using chemical weapons against the Kurds in Northern Iraq, yet the government in Washington can differentiate between Saddam’s use of chemical weapons and our own use of them. Is the reasoning behind this because we presume that our use of chemical agents is backed by a “noble cause”?
We are being reminded on a daily basis that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. The presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain never lets a chance at exposing Iran pass by. It doesn’t seem to matter that the IAEA and our own intelligence estimate seem to differ with that opinion. American policy seems to dictate that Iran is guilty unless proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, innocent of aspiring to become a nuclear power. We constantly call for more inspections by the IAEA and other “independent” agencies. Yet we could not imagine an Iranian weapons inspection team knocking on the doors at Westinghouse and General Electric demanding to inspect the weapons programs that they are involved with. We presume that America has the inalienable right to develop any weapons of mass destruction that it wishes to develop without regard to world opinion. This attitude is consistently held throughout the post world war II era, even though the US is the only country that has used nuclear weapons on other human beings.
McCain remarked that Iran, a country that we outspend 98.6 times militarily, supports Hezbollah. In reality, this organization has absolutely no bearing on our national security at all. Americans blindly accept that if we declare Hezbollah to be a threat, then it must be so. The threat however, isn’t towards us, but rather towards Israel and Lebanon. If one takes the position that the interests of Israel and Lebanon are the same as our own, that presumption could lead us into nothing but more war and an ideological schism between the United States and the rest of the Middle-East. Our support of Israel is nothing short of irrational. If you take the religious elements out of the equation, and our guilt and shame for not stopping the Nazi’s soon enough on their persecution of the Jews and the subsequent holocaust, there is absolutely no rational explanation for supporting a right wing nation that is systematically destroying an entire people. We continue to articulate on an equitable peace between the Palestinians and the Jewish State, yet we turn our backs on the brutal and systematical killing of the people in the Gaza Strip.
Our political candidates have left all weapons of mass destruction “on the table”. Our Democratic contenders blithely state that it is acceptable to attack threats to America inside the sovereign borders of other nations. The presidential candidates presume that we have the right to send missiles to attack Iran for pursuing nuclear power; meanwhile we say nothing as Pakistan, India and North Korea emerge as nuclear powers. We say nothing as Brazil, Japan, Germany and other nations develop nuclear power. We presume that the American people are incensed with the nuclear ambitions of Iran. We are obsessed with Iran in that we will use any pretext to attack that country. America has become super-cop of the world; we are also the judge and jury. Our presumption of superiority to the rest of the world is leading us down the road to being far worse than a state-sponsor of terrorism. We have become the terrorists. We presume that we are arbiters of reason and rationality in the world. We presume too much.
That’s the way I see it.
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Timothy V. Gatto
