A Simple Matter of Trust

US soldier—approximately 5,043 nautical miles from the nearest American shoreline—aims his weapon at an Iraqi citizen pleading for his life in Mosul, Iraq, July 23, 2003. Photo credit: Wally Santana, Associated Press

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It’s unbelievable if not totally baffling. Here we are, heading into 2025, and people are still criticizing US foreign policy and our government’s tireless efforts to export freedom and democracy around the world, especially to geographically strategic Middle Eastern countries rich in oil, liquified natural gas, and critical minerals.

For those misguided individuals with remarkably short memories, I would like to pose a conundrum: Why would any normal, red-blooded American trust the governments of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, or Syria? I mean, for God’s sake, just look at this horrific track record!

• THEY dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killing more than 200 thousand people in 1945, creating decades of genetic deformities and irreparable environmental damage.

• THEY control 750 military bases in 80 countries and have an annual defense budget of $842 billion.

• THEY, along with Russia, hold the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.

• THEY have the largest intelligence agencies on the planet with budgets of $76.5 billion for the National Intelligence and $29.8 billion for Military Intelligence Programs.

• THEY introduced the world to insidious weapons such as napalm, agent orange, white phosphorus, and depleted uranium.

• THEY dropped bombs on more than thirty sovereign nations since WWII—killing tens of millions of innocent men, women, and children—including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Somalia, Sudan, Yugoslavia–Serbia, and Vietnam.

• THEY backed, funded, and trained murderous right-wing military regimes around the world and ousted the governments of more than twenty five foreign countries including Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, British Guiana, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Congo, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Fiji, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Indonesia, Iraq, Jamaica, Laos, Nicaragua, Panama, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, and South Vietnam.

• THEY were among the few countries to vote against a United Nations resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism.

• THEY developed and rolled out an untested injectable bioweapon, raking in billions in profit while causing more than 17 million deaths and more than 567 million adverse reactions and long-term injuries.

• THEY staged a 2014 coup d'état in Ukraine and sent billions of US tax dollars and weapons to that country’s ultra-right wing Nazi regime, igniting an all-out proxy war with Russia resulting in 500,000 deaths.

• THEY currently support and fund the despicable Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza that has killed more than 43,846 people including 17,385 children; 11,891 women; 2,421 elderly; 1,054 medical personnel; 184 journalists; 496 educational staff; 203 United Nations staff; and 85 Civil Defense workers. Not to mention the impact of the ongoing water crisis they created that threatens what is left of the remaining population.

• THEY even outlined a plan, in 2009, to overthrow the government of the United States using armed terrorist organizations, provoking war, economic warfare, and covert military operations.

Wake Up, America!

“We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us.”

—Walter Kelly, cartoonist, April 22, 1970