Only America is Important and to H… with Everyone Else

Many people in the U.S. are generous. Also, our government prides itself on what we have done for other nations. The Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe is a vivid example. And there have been countless American lives lost on foreign soil while attempting to protect people there.

However, as I watch the different news networks I observe an exceptionally disturbing phenomenon. It appears that the overwhelming majority of the newspersons and their guests are incapable of viewing any of the events in the world from anything but an American perspective and view the suffering of non-Americans as relatively irrelevant.

To illustrate this point, I will refer to the October 6^th 02 Wolf Blitzer, Late Edition on CNN. Mr. Blitzer was interviewing four prestigious journalists who represent three upscale magazines and one syndicated columnist. Of the four, two were of African-American heritage, (whom I have often found to be more sensitive to outside the U.S. issues) and two were from the present U.S. majority population.

One segment on the show was especially effective in demonstrating the prevalent perspective of:

“Let the Rest of the World Go to H… as Long as America is okay!”

Mr. Blitzer was making the point that certain senators later regretted voting against the Persian Gulf War resolution because their negative vote hurt them and the war turned out to be relatively painless.

Each guest enthusiastically understood his point and agreed with it. But I was quite disappointed that not one person challenged him on “painless for whom?”

Even considering the brief war’s impact on Americans, yes, there may have been a noticeable absence of multiple body bags. Nevertheless, there was tremendous upheaval in countless lives and the health of thousands returning from that region may never return too normal. Even babies born to many gulf war veterans were born with birth defects.

Since I personally write from the assumption that the Gulf War would not have occurred with out American State Department signals to Iraq that the U.S. would not interfere if they did invade Kuwait, the U.S. appears to be mainly responsible for the suffering which occurred in the Gulf War.

Therefore, in reference to Mr. Blitzer’s comment about the war being relatively painless, I ask:

1.   Was it relatively painless for thousands of Iraqis and Kuwaitis who were either wounded, maimed or killed?

1.   Was it relatively painless for the mothers, wives, sisters, brothers and children who lost their loved ones in the war?

2.   Was it relatively painless for hundreds of Kuwaiti families who may never know what happened to their missing fathers, sons or brothers?

3.   Has it been painless for the families of the many gulf fisherman who lost their livelihood due to the catastrophic environmental damage to their fishing waters?

4.   Has it been painless for the tens of thousands of families in impoverished nations who eagerly waited each month for a welcome paycheck from the Gulf but instead had to welcome the bread winner home to unemployment.

1.   Was it painless for Saudi and Israeli families who lost family members to Iraqi missiles?

2.   Has it been painless for Saudi and Kuwaiti young people who are unable to get married because of less jobs available due to budget cuts while their governments are paying the bills for the cost of war?

Of course these few questions are all irrelevant because the war’s impact on

Americans was so negligible so the American Administration says:

“To H… with such irrelevant questions. Bring on another painless war with Iraq!”

Woe to America!