Why Americans Don't Understand Terrorism. Americans often claim to be confused about terrorism. "Why do they hate us so much?" they ask. Americans don't understand the anger and hatred directed towards them because of their inability to see the world through any eyes but their own. They refuse to believe that things that would anger Americans if foreigners did them, anger foreigners when Americans do them.
Americans who ask why it should bother anyone that American corporations are so large and powerful (backed with American military might) that they can influence foreign governments must not have been paying attention to the angry reaction to the announcement of the Dubai Ports World deal. Why should Americans be against a backroom deal made by their government with a foreign-owned corporation when American corporations do the same thing in foreign countries? Many Americans are old enough to remember how the Japanese were reviled in the 1980s just because they opened some factories and bought some real estate in the U.S. "But the Japanese and Arabs don't share our culture and values," you say. Exactly, and foreigners often think the same of American companies in their countries.
"What's wrong with renditioning and secret prisons?" Americans ask. "The detainees are terrorists, aren't they?" So says the American government, but recently released Pentagon documents reveal that many of the Guantanamo Bay detainees were not only not terrorists, but not even particularly hostile towards the United States nor sympathetic to al-Qaeda. What if Russian or Chinese agents were kidnapping Americans, imprisoning them in foreign countries, and refusing to even reveal the names of their prisoners? Do you think Americans might be upset? "But how could Americans, even if they sympathized with the Chechens or the Falun Dafa, be a danger to Russia or China?" you ask. Exactly, and many of the "terrorists" at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere were no danger to Americans either, though they may be now because of the treatment they received.
According to the Department of Defense publication, "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country," the United States has troops in 135 of the 192 countries in the world. Americans seem to think that all of these countries should be grateful for American "protection," but how grateful would Americans be if Mexican, Russian, or Saudi Arabian troops were stationed in their hometowns to "protect" them? All three of these countries are great friends and allies of the American government, by the way. "But Americans don't need foreign troops to protect them," you say. Exactly, and foreigners know that the American troops in their countries are not there to protect them, but to protect American interests.
Until Americans admit that they use one standard when judging the actions of foreign governments and a completely different one when juding the actions of their own, they will never be prepared to deal with the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. From the foreign perspective, the American government is a bully, and nobody likes a bully, especially a hypocritical bully that preaches peace and freedom, but practices war and repression. [Police State USA]
Unfortunately Americans generally don't ask questions like this, preferring to cling to ridiculous slogans like "they hate us for our freedom" so they can avoid facing the consequences of their actions.
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