[Peace-discuss] Letter in DI

[David Green]

This letter was published today: 

Kiyoshi Martinez writes (7/8):        

          “Freedom is being able to life your life,
practice your liberties and pursue your own happiness
without intruding upon another's ability to do so. I
believe this is a concept . . . worth defending. . . A
free society must work to . . . encourage these
beliefs in places where the concept is distant from
reality.” 

          Martinez is mistaken if he thinks a review
of American history reveals encouragement of such
beliefs in our foreign policies, or even that our
government has voluntarily promoted domestic freedoms.
Instead, we have promoted expansionism, state power,
and corporate economic interests through violent means
when necessary: from the Native genocide, the
Philippines massacres of the early 1900s, and repeated
invasions of Central America and Haiti; to the
millions murdered in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, our
overthrow of elected and legitimate leaders in Iran,
Chile, and the Congo, the Central American genocides
of the 1980s, our support for the brutalities of the
Shah and Saddam Hussein, and our continued support for
the savage occupation of Palestine by our client state
Israel, whose apartheid system is worth comparing to
that which we supported in South Africa to the bitter
end. 

          Martinez is right in arguing that freedom is
worth defending. Unfortunately, it is being defended
by others in the world in response to our own
predations. When overwhelming U.S. military power is
used to impose client regimes, corporate
globalization, and the looting of public resources,
one can expect resistance. When peaceful resistance is
ignored, local violence is the consequence. When local
violence is ineffective, it is predictable that
violence is taken to the belly of the beast, however
immorally. The message of the London bombings is
clear. It is not a response to our promotion of
freedom, but of tyranny. 

David Green

 

 



		
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