Letter: U.S. has troubled weapons-policy history
May 09, 2015 – 6:00 PM
Throughout U.S. history, we have condemned others for actions we were ourselves guilty of. This includes our use of chemical and biological weapons, nuclear weapons, and frequent American acts of terrorism both on U.S. and foreign soil. We are understandably concerned about Iran’s potential to obtain nuclear weapons. Of course, we should stop Iran from obtaining such weapons by any peaceful means necessary (although sanctions often hurt only innocents).
The hard reality is the United States is the only nation guilty of using nuclear weapons. When Iraq protested inspections, I wondered how the United States would have felt if we were subjected to inspections of our nuclear power plants. Considering our history of accidents (e.g. Three Mile Island), that perhaps would have been justified.
America understandably condemns the 9/11 terrorist acts by Saudi Arabians, yet Saudi Arabia remains our ally. We fail to acknowledge our own long history of terrorism: killing innocent civilians (e.g. Vietnam, Iraq, Dresden during the Second World War), the holocaust we perpetrated on Native Americans, slavery, lynching during the Jim Crow period, and harassment of (especially) black males in places such as Ferguson by police officers. These acts, by definition, are terrorism. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs terrorized innocent Japanese civilians, who were victims of radiation for at least a generation. We used napalm, a chemical weapon, against the Vietnamese. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
The late great progressive historian Howard Zinn put it best when he wrote, “We ought to stop thinking that we must have military solutions to the problems that we face in the world. The solutions that we need are the solutions of dealing with sickness and disease and hunger. That’s fundamental. If you want to end terrorism, you have to stop being terrorists, which is what war is.”
David L. Cohen
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