“We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world, militarily, and what we’re doing,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in October 2017. That was in the wake of the combat deaths of four members of the Special Operations forces in the West African...
Why They Hate Us. You often hear politicians claim they hate us for our freedom or US exceptionalism. Americans, well at least some if not most, have an idea that the US is the best country in the world. We are the most powerful in terms of military, the best in terms of finance, and think most every other country needs to look to America as an example of what their country should become. Americans laugh at third world countries and we often use the term “Banana Republics” to describe others. We cringe at how they live, the religions they observe, what they eat, and more.
America is the first to comment about how other nations treat their citizens while doing the same thing to aggregate citizens here in the US. We limit the scientist, inventors, and engineers from other countries (mostly because of their ethnicity) though it’s these same people that are responsible or behind many of the US Corporations that operate internationally and form a substantial employment base for US Citizens. We send our trash to other countries…yes literally trash in shipping containers so we don’t have to deal with it. We make allies of countries (Japan, Germany, and more) in which we have fought wars that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of American lives, while we ignore the pain and suffering in other countries. But worst and most hypocritical of all, we seem to think that we know best for how other countries should operate. So, is any of this why they hate us?
The United Nations counts about 251 Countries in the World. The US recognizes about 195. Most Americans are aware that the US is engaged in armed conflicts in a few countries mainly Iraq and Afghanistan. US Soldiers are dying every day in these countries, but worst yet, their families are under even more stress here at home. However, that is another story. So, of these 251 UN-recognized countries, most Americans can name 2 to maybe 5 we are actively engaged. WRONG! At any given time, US Special Forces have/are engaged in 149 (+/-) countries. Congress just passed a $741 Billion Defense Spending Bill. I’ve no clue where any of this money is going…and likely you nor many of the 335 members of Congress that voted for the bill knows either. No doubt, my guess is that a good portion of this spending will be to continue military engagement in these 149 (+/-) countries.
Now let’s imagine that each state (50) in the US is a separate country. France is conducting military engagement in Ohio, Russia is conducting military engagement in Arizona, and Japan is conducting military engagement in Maine, New Jersey, Texas, and North Dakota. As an American, would you be OK with any of this? The US is engaged in 149 (+/-) of 251 countries. According to my math, that’s nearly 60% of the world. Any of this shining a light on why the world really hates us?
