Let's look at some historical facts to determine the true face of the USA.
Around the 1900s, as Spanish power waned, the US took the opportunity to grab far-flung colonies that Spain was no longer able to control. The Philippines was on the verge of independence when American troops invaded and caused the deaths of some 300,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians.Was the Second World War a fight between good and evil? Hardly. In truth, it was a struggle among the world's most powerful nations for their share of colonies. Here in Asia, the French controlled Indochina, the Dutch had Indonesia, the British had India and Malaya and the Americans ruled the Philippines. The Germans lost many of their colonies after the First World War. Both Japan and Germany were hemmed in by the other nations and locked out of the colonial game. So they decided to fight. They gambled, lost and were labeled the bad guys ever since. For sure they did some terrible things during the war, but didn't the British or the Americans? Did anybody hang for the fire bombing of Hamburg (50,000 dead), Dresden (25,000 dead) and Tokyo (100,000 dead)?
I would suggest that the Axis forces actually did us a big favour. Germany's war with France, Holland and Britain had weakened the three countries to such an extent that their respective empires crumbled, allowing colonies like Malaya to gain independence with relative ease.
By the way, if you think that the Allies were all great buddies, have a look at this quote from that famous American general, George Patton:The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them.
Patton was lobbying to join forces with Germany to attack Russia - at the very end of WW2!
A mere 5 years after Second World War, our American heroes who had so gallantly defeated the Japanese, found themselves in Korea, fighting evil North Koreans and atheist communist Chinese. War-mongering General Douglas MacArthur was rubbing his hands with glee, seeing the Korean War as his stepping stone to the White House.
The Americans dropped so much napalm on North Korea that a shocked Winston Churchill gasped, "When napalm was invented in the latter stages of World War II, no one contemplated that it would be ‘splashed’ over a civilian population.” North Korea was so heavily bombed that "three million North Koreans died during this conflict, and 18 out of its 22 largest cities were 50 percent to 100 percent obliterated." [North Korea: Another Country by Bruce Cumings]. Can we still blame "Dear Leader" Kim for his hatred of the USA?
Curtis LeMay, US Air Force General:Over a period of three years or so....we burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.
When China entered the Korean War, MacArthur requested 50 atomic bombs for him to drop on Chinese cities. So much for erstwhile friends. And so much for the myth that the selfless Americans rescued China from the Japanese.
Moving on to Indonesia, the CIA instigated a coup in 1965 that destroyed the PKI (the Communist Party of Indonesia) and brought Suharto to power, killing, some say, close to 1 million Indonesians in the process, many of them Chinese, communist or otherwise.This bloodbath was quickly eclipsed by the savagery of the Vietnam War. The Americans once again tried to seize a colony that the French was forced to relinquish, using the same trick that won them the Philippines from the Spanish earlier. Unfortunately, the US encountered a much tougher foe this time. Once again, Uncle Sam attempted genocide from the air, dropping 7 million tons of bombs on a peasant population. This is twice the tonnage dropped by ALL countries during the entire Second World War! In addition, 20 million gallons of Agent Orange was sprayed on the jungles of South Vietnam. Agent Orange contains a poison called dioxin. Trees are still stunted and babies born deformed today but the US has not paid a single cent to compensate the Vietnamese people.
Korea's attempt at reunification failed, no thanks to the Americans. Vietnam reunified successfully, despite violent opposition from France and the US. Taiwan's reunification with China is similarly blocked by Uncle Sam. Nobody interfered in the American Civil War but don't expect the Yanks to appreciate that. Is the US motivated by sheer spitefulness? Beggar thy neighbour? For the US to succeed, other countries must fail?
What happened to the legendary American hero who would lay his life down for your freedom? Is he a myth? Therein lies the paradox. The truth is simple, I think. There is a group of very idealistic Americans who are true believers in democracy, freedom of expression, and all that jazz. Then there is the other group of highly cynical and powerful Yanks who exploit the first group to get precisely what they want. They control the weapons factories, the military and the media that churns out the propaganda that is fed to the world.The US is both Jeckyll and Hyde.
