Does America have blood on its hands ?

[kentuck]

As Reverend Wright said? Even if it is true, is that something that Americans are not permitted to say? Especially if someone we know is running for President? Do we have certain restricitons on free speech?

Do you think we killed innocent people with our invasion of Iraq? Or dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Or the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam? Or the millions of tons of bombs we have dropped around the world? How can anyone say that we have blood on our hands?

Isn't that unpatriotic? Maybe even treasonous? It doesn't really matter if it is true or not. That is something that is forbidden to speak. It's a matter of knowing when to keep your mouth shut. What can Obama do to keep the Reverend silent? Doesn't this reflect on his inability to lead? Or on his own patriotism? Perhaps he believes America has blood on its hands? Wouldn't that make him a traitor?

[navarth]

1. I'll say it right now.

America, especially the clowns that voted for Bu$h, has blood on it's hands. Fuck anybody that doesn't like it, I'm not playing nice with these idiots anymore.

It's a fucking disgrace.

[TooBigaTent]

2. This country was founded on the genocide of the native population. Why expect the US

to change its ways when it has never (minor War of 1812 excepted) suffered the direct consequences of war?

[JohnnyBoots]

3. We got most of our real estate through genocide of the indigenous populations and that was just the

beginning.

[Redbear]

4. Yes we do and its a great question

I see it as a politically incorrect truth.

[scheming daemons]

5. George Bush/Dick Cheney have blood on their hands... and they are our elected leaders... so yes...

..we do, unfortunately.

[Fovea]

6. Pick up a history book

find a period of American history when we were not killing anyone for something we wanted.

I would say to up to eight years ago there was still a chance for America to become a true world leader, encouraging peace, stability, and well being around the globe.

Now, not so much.

Look at what the war party has been willing to do in the past.
1968, for example.

[PATRICK]

27. You could watch the

Nuremberg trials movie and try as you may to feel yourself represented by Spencer Tracy you could feel America blowing it from the top down. Anything rooted in violence or given opportunity by violence goes in morally stained and set on a crippled course. Acknowledging the blood without the pride issue rearing its head on both sides WOULD be a great first step. Setting up the UN in a way signifies the attempt as does the constant raising of the question by the true American conscience.

We may not be the Macbeths, but if you identify yourself as a nation, the stain rests everywhere. Responsibility denied is itself a sentence of personal moral responsibility. My money went meekly to funding the deaths of millions of innocents in violence alone, not to mention peacetime horrors. And what have I done about any of that? So precious little that the mind retreats easily and lessened from the staggering cynicism required to live with it.

[redqueen]

7. Societies everywhere need to stop whitewashing their history...

and in the process... preventing the younger generations from really learning from the past. When the past is sanitized, and these things are covered up, it helps to enable these things to happen again and again.

[jenmito]

8. Of course! What gets ME is the commentators questioning WHAT blood he thinks America has on its

hands as if they're blind to not only our history but to our present! Do they feel better about a religious leader saying gay people and "abortionists" caused 9/11? I guess it's NOT ok to blame 9/11 on facts but it IS ok to blame it on people the commentators obviously feel are less human than they are.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. An ocean of it. And, we're still adding more in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy.” - Gandhi

[Skidmore]

10. Keeping your mouth shut is exactly why our nation has

committed the atrocities you enumerated, kentuck. Too many people stood silently and watched murder and mayhem be conducted because why? We are perfect and infallible? Since when? We are a nation of people and capable of any act of inhumanity that could be carried out by any of the designated bad boys? Bush and Cheney are different from Saddam in what way? Our trail of blood and tears go back to the founding of this nation. Ignoring history is shortsighted. Scapegoating a man for speaking truth about history is reprehensible.

[kentuck]

31. Why do so many people keep their mouths shut about this topic?

Shock and Awe! Ooooooo! Look at all those pretty bombs! I think I just saw a baby's head fly by on my television! Wow! What a show!

[futureliveshere]

11. Well said, many times I look at our actions around the world and wonder.....

Why the rest of the world doesn't nuke the hell out of us. Then I see the fair and free people here who APPRECIATE the b/s they have been fed and WANT to make a difference and improve and I realize why.

The reverend should absolutely have the right to say the TRUTH and no-one, NO-ONE has the right to take that away from him.

[SoCalDem]

12. We are neck-deep in it..always have been

:(

[truebrit71]

13. Yes. Since it's inception it has.

...and the ignorance of a vast number in this country as to the details and extent of that is no error...

[Arugula Latte]

14. Of course we do. We're all covered in buckets of blood. Look at history. nt

[whatchamacallit]

15. Here's my answer

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x123858

[crawfish]

16. We do, and it gives us something in common with the rest of the world.

The big difference is that the gap seems wider because of our ideals.

[damntexdem]

17. Oh, no! Not any more.

We wiped it all over our clothes.

Now we keep washing our hands and saying "out, damned spot."

;-)

[kentuck]

18. Can no one defend America??

Our great country? Against these charges?

[cliffordu]

19. We do have blood on our hands.

A true patriot can say that. Then that patriot, if they are TRULY a patriot, must vow to stop it.

[kentuck]

20. Well said.

True patriots will fight to change our country to one that fits our ideals.

[izzybeans]

21. I think we must prefer our Politicians to either be oblivious bafoons

or to tell us our world is made of delicious lolli's.

The pundits seem to be saying "Apologize for destroying my candy cane nationalistic dreams!"

[RichardRay]

22. Sure, I'll stick my finger in that socket...

I am a proponent of the realist school of geopolitics - not as a means of choosing future actions, but as a means of analyzing what has been done and is being done. From that perspective, The United State of America having or not having blood on its hands is meaningless, the nation-state has effectively defended its interests in the world (at least so far, that's been changing recently). So, the nation-state doesn't have to worry about that.

On the other hand, we, the people, have a lot of blood on our hands, and that's what needs to change. To the extent that we benefit from the self-interested behavior of the nation-state we carry the guilt for that behavior.

That may seem like a distinction without a difference, but I don't think so. Saying 'America has blood on its hands' is a way of trying to ignore the blood that's dripping off my own fingers.

[Aloha Spirit]

23. Let me tell you something about"knowing when to keep your mouth shut" -->

Never tell a black person to their face that they need to learn how to keep their mouth shut.

[BlooInBloo]

24. lol! As if you need to leave America's borders to find rampant American atrocities.

A large part - but not all - of the intrinsic essence of America is committing atrocities.

[kenny blankenship]

25. Oh I dunno. How much blood could a nation built by slave labor on the graves of massacred indigenous

peoples really have accrued over the short time since its founding?

[Catherina]

26. Oceans of it. One of the reasons I support Obama is for having the decency

to recognize that and being able to look at the world with more sensitivity.

[Lord Helmet]

28. yes and so does everybody that voted for this war

[knixphan]

29. Mossadegh

...removed from power on August 19, 1953, in a coup d'état, supported and funded by the British and U.S. governments...

[shadowknows69]

30. Rivers of it

[Forkboy]

32. Wright said it very well by saying Americans don't like the "myth" of America challenged.

But that's what our much of our history is, a sanitized myth.

[Tatiana]

33. Yes, America has blood on its hands.

Did America overthrow democratically-elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953, installing a cruel and repressive dictator afterward?

Did America twenty years later overthrow the democratically-elected president Salvador Allende in 1973, installing a cruel and repressive dictator afterward?

Did America (LBJ) support support overthrow of Brazilian President João Goulart in 1964?

Did America (Truman) support countless murdering dictators like Fulgencio Batista, formally recognizing his government on March 27, 1952 after the democratically-elected Carlos Prío Socarrás (who was going to be re-elected)?

Things only began to change when Jimmy Carter was elected and he began to cut off the funding for paramilitaries and juntas in countries like Guatemala and El Salvador. But that was not to last, because we all know Ronald Reagan picked up where previous Presidents left off, funding the contras in Nicaragua and training future Guatemalan "President" Oscar Mejía Víctores, who overthrew the previous U.S.-backed dictator Gen. Efraín Ríos Montt who had overthrown the democratically-elected Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán.

Did America support an attempt to overthrow Hugo Chavez, the democratically-elected President of Venezuela?

I don't have to mention our recent dealings with one Pervez Musharraf, appointed himself to the office of President of Pakistan in late 2001 and later had the audacity to suspend Pakistan's constitution. The list of human rights violations from his regime is a long one.

There is more, so much more murder and mayhem that has been done in our names by the American government, irrespective of political party. We've supported the torture, political imprisonment, and killing of so many people across this globe. Jeremiah Wright was damn right. If people would only learn about this country's true history, they would know that we, ourselves, have been terrorists, in the view of the citizens of other nations, for a long time.

We, do have blood on our hands. But, we have a chance to erase some of that stain. I hope America uses the opportunity.

[Emillereid]

34. That's a no-brainer. Yes the US has blood on its hands -- millions of deaths

since World War II.