That’s Norm Kaiser of Freeport’s response in Saturday’s Daily News to Obama’s statement that “the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilites.”
Kaiser says he’s outraged because Americans “saved the day” in World War I, “again answered the call and saved the day” in World War II, rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan and “liberated Italy, France, Belgium, the Vatican, South Korea, Grenada, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.”
No argument, America has done some noble things fighting for freedom. But it’s done some pretty ghastly things too.
Take Iraq, for instance? We “liberated” it from a tyrant we’d propped up and supported for more than 30 years; remember when we condemned Israel for blowing up Saddam’s “peaceful” nuclear lab? Remember when we gave our support verbally to the Kurds then stood by while Saddam used poison gas on his own people (when he used it on Iranian forces in the Iraq-Iran War we actively supported it)?
And we went into Iraq because supposedly it was a threat to us (or whatever reason really lurked inside Bush’s brain); liberation was just a side-effect—and Iraqi women seem to be less liberated and more repressed now.
Ditto Afghanistan: Despite Bush’s occasional claims we went in to free the oppressed Afghani women from Taliban rule, we went in because al Qaida hung out there—that was about it.
Likewise, we didn’t “answer the call” in World War II: We were an isolationist country that traded with the Axis until we went to war, and that because we’d been attacked.
We overthrew Iranian democracy in 1953 and installed the Shah and Saavik. We installed a Guatemalan dictatorship that murdered thousands of Indians there. Reagan supported Ferdinand Marcos when his own people wanted him gone, opposed an end to apartheid in South Africa and assured America that an El Salvador government that murdered nuns and priests was complying with human rights standards.
We’ve done many good things in the world. But Obama was right, we have all too often fallen short of our vision of ourself.