THINK!

this website consists only of two large texts. both were written shortly after the attacks on the us on september, 11th, 2oo1. the first one collects evidence on what to think about the freedom of speech in the us the other one was written by an australian and collects general facts against the behaviour of the us imperialists. this is by far not a hate site - the word »think« shall imply to not believe everything that's said and stay informed about world politics - a concern for everyone!

Here is a list of some of the blatent censorship going on in the USA since September 11th. Comments please on your view of censorship/free-speech, and how far you should be allowed to go.

ART
In September 2001, officials at the Baltimore Museum of Art removed a painting, acquired in 1990, titled "Terrorist" from the contemporary wing "out of respect to visitors' sensitivities." The painting, an acrylic and aluminum piece measuring 96 by 64 inches, featured three fragmented lines - "TER," ROR" and "IST" in large black stenciled letters. An official from the BMA later said that the work would be reinstalled with an accompanying placard describing the artist's motive for the work.

Source - "BMA Pulls Art Bearing Word 'Terrorist'" - Baltimore Sun - 9/17/01, "Sensitivity Led to Removal of 'Terrorist' Art, BMA Says" - Baltimore Sun - 9/18/01

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced the cancellation of performances featuring "The Death of Klinghoffer" in November and December 2001. "The Death of Klinghoffer" is an opera by John Adams about Palestinian hijackers killing a passenger on an American cruise ship in 1985. The Orchestra explained that the reason for the decision was due to the events of September 11th and concern by some that the opera was sympathetic to the hijackers.

Source - "Massachusetts: Symphony Cancels 'Klinghoffer'" - New York Times - 11/2/01

After a complaint from a patron, federal agents investigated officials at the private Art Car Museum in Houston after the museum recently displayed a work titled "EmpyTrellis (revisted)". The work, part of the museum's "Secret Wars" exhibit, is a charcoal drawing of President Bush at a speaker's podium enclosed by a steel trellis shaped like a half globe. The artist claims that the piece is mean to be a commentary on U.S. environemntal policies. The Secret Service also reportedly asked questions about a painting in the exhibit that featured a buring city skyline.

Source - "Museum Staff Defends Secret Wars Exhibit" - Houston Chronicle - 12/12/01

The director and senior curator of the Southeast Museum of Photography at Daytona Beach Community College's resigned in December 2001, claiming that she was told to cancel a February exhibit of Afghanistan photos. Museum officials claim that she wasn't told to cancel the exhibit but was told to reschedule it to a date that didn't coincide with another exhibit celebrating patriotism.

Source - "Photography Museum Director Resigns Over Afghanistan Exhibit" - Daytona Beach New-Journal - 12/13/01

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ENTERTAINMENT
Within days of the attacks, Clear Channel Communications circulated a list of songs to its 1,200 channels across the country suggesting that they use good judgment in playing any of the 150 songs on the list. Included on the list are obvious songs such as "Jet Airliner" by the Steve Miller Band and "My City Was Gone" by the Pretenders. The list also included such songs as "America" by Neil Diamond and "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones and many songs with a political message such as all songs by the band Rage Against the Machine and "Imagine" by John Lennon.

Source - Numerous sources

On the 9/17/01 edition of the TV show Politically Incorrect, host Bill Maher and conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza discuss the events of September 11th. D'Souza refers to the attackers as "warriors" while Maher states that, in comparison, the U.S. government has acted like cowards because it had previously launched missles at targets thousands of miles away in contrast to those who flew airplanes into buildings. Following news of the exchange, such companies as Federal Express, Sears-Roebuck and Quizno's pull advertising from Politically Incorrect and some local TV stations refuse to air the show.

Source - Numerous sources

In October 2001, Newsday reported that it pulled the comic strip "The Boondocks" from its paper because it criticized U.S. support of Osama bin Laden during the Soviet/Afghanistan war. Newsday maintains that it took the action so as to not offend New Yorkers. (Since the 10/9/01 article was written, The Boondocks has returned to the pages of Newsday).

Source - "Drawing on the Headlines" - Newsday - 10/9/01

In November 2001, the St. George (Utah) Spectrum printed a front page apology after publishing an editorial cartoon by syndicated cartoonist Steve Benson. The cartoon featured President Bush in a fighter plane dropping bombs that had such messages as "killing innocent civilians" and "starving millions of Afghans" on them.

Source - "St. George Paper Apologizes for Cartoon" - Salt Lake City Tribune - 11/14/01

The Boondocks Thanksgiving day strip was removed from the Dallas Morning News and replaced with an older strip because it was critical of President Bush. The strip in question featured the character Huey Freeman saying grace at Thanksgiving dinner. During grace, Huey said, "...in this time of war against Osama Bin Laden and the oppressive Taliban regime, we are thankful that our leader isn't the spoiled son of a powerful politician from a wealthy oil family who is supported by religious fundamentalists, operates through clandestine organizations, has no respect for the democratic electoral process, bombs innocents and uses war to deny people their civil liberties. Amen."

Source - "What's Up, 'Docks?" - Dallas Observer - 12/11/01

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NEWS & COMMENTARY

Tom Gutting, city editor for the Texas City Sun was fired in September 2001 after writing a column in which referred to President Bush as a "scared child seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" for not returning to Washington DC immediately after hearing about the attacks on September 11th.
Source - "Columnists Fired After Criticizing Bush" - Editor & Publisher - 9/27/01

In September 2001, Dan Guthrie, a columnist for the Grants Pass Daily Courier in Oregon was fired after he wrote a column criticizing Bush for not being more visible following news of the September 11th attacks

Source - "Columnists Fired After Criticizing Bush" - Editor & Publisher - 9/27/01

The National Review and Denham Springs News (Louisiana) dropped conservative commentator Ann Coulter's syndicated column from its website and terminated her as a contributing editor. Her dismissal came after penning two consecutive columns soon after the attacks. One recommended invading countries, killing their leaders and converting them to Christianity. The other discussed "suspicious-looking swarthy males" and a policy to require passports for domestic flights. The National Review Online posted the first column but not the second. After hearing of the decision to not run the second column, Coulter roudly criticized the editors and was then dismissed.

Source - "National Review Cans Columnist Ann Coulter" - Washington Post - 10/2/01

In September 2001, the U.S. Department of State asked Voice of America, a U.S. government-funded radio network, to refrain from running an interview with Mullah Mohammad Omar, leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban saying that airing the interview would be providing a means for terrorists to communicate their messages and that it wasn't "newsworthy". After staffers protested, the State Department relented and the interview aired on 9/25/01.

Sources - Numerous sources

In October 2001, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice contacted the five networks to caution them against running interviews of Osama bin Laden out of fear that his televised addresses may contain hidden messages for his followers, inspire his followers and frighten Americans.

Sources - "The Networks, Giving Aid to the Enemy?" - Washington Post - 10/12/01, "TV Networks to Limit Use Of Tapes From Bin Laden" - Washington Post - 10/11/01

Washington University in St. Louis refused to allow a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on campus to provide coverage of a 9/20/01 student rally supporting restraint and an international solution as a response to the events of September 11th. Campus police refused the reporter entrance because she did not fulfill University guidelines mandating that all media personnel be escorted by a public affairs staff member and requesting of access to the campus through the public affairs office.

Source - "Wash U Hampers Press Freedom" - St. Louis Journalism Review - October 2001

Syndicated radio host Peter Werbe's talk-radio show was dropped by radio station KOMY-AM in Santa Cruz, California in early October 2001 after questioning U.S. military actions in Afghanistan.

Source - "Uncivil Liberty" - Metro Santa Cruz Newspaper - 10/26/01

In September 2001, a freelance reporter from Oregon was told he could not interview a researcher from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention because the Department of Health & Human Services forbids all interviews having to do with terrorism or disasters.

Source - "Panelists Tell Editors: Congressional Efforts to Protect Freedom May Thwart It" - www.freedomforum.org - 10/15/01

A poll taken by Pew Research Center for People & the Press in mid-October 2001 revealed that 6 out of 10 Americans felt that the military - not news organizations - should have more control over the news regarding the U.S. bombings in Afghanistan and 50% believed that news organizations should not air speeches by Osama bin Laden.

Source - Poll: Public Not Rattled by Anthrax Reports; Six in 10 Say Military Should Exert Control Over War News - Associated Press - 10/16/01

Someone claiming to be a federal agent phoned Hypervine, an Internet service provider, to inform them that they may be in violation of anti-terrorism laws and could have their assets seized for allowing Cosmic Entertainment to air three radio shows over the Internet. The three shows are IRA Radio, about Irish news and politics, Al Lewis Live, a radio show hosted by ex-"Munster" Al Lewis and Our Americas, a spanish-language show about rebels in Latin America. After receiving the call, Hypervine shut down all three shows. The FBI has declined to comment.

Source - "'Radical" Radio Shows Forced From the Net" - USA Today - 10/16/01

In October 2001, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency entered into an exclusive agreement with Space Imaging, Inc. to purchase all of the rights of the satellite photos that the company is taking of Afghanistan and surrounding areas. The National Imagery and Mapping Agency is part of the U.S. Defense Department and Space Imaging, Inc. is regarded as the best source in the world for such high resolution satellite photos. While the Pentagon claims that the agreement is meant to supplement the government's own satellite images, some observers have pointed out that the agreement means that the news media will no longer have access to such images and will, as a result, be hampered from reporting on various basic aspects of military actions in Afghanistan and will not be able to independently verify Pentagon claims.

Source - "Pentagon Corners Output of Special Afghan Images" - New York Times - 10/19/01

In October 2001, NBC News White House correspondent, Campbell Brown, was contacted by phone by a senior administration official who "gently chided' her for tough questioning of Tom Ridge, the head of the Office of Homeland Security, during a press briefing.

Source - "Bush Plans Speech With Coherent, Unified Message" - New York Times - 11/2/01

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SCHOOLS
Patricia Bowes, an art teacher at Addison Minzer Elementary School in Palm Beach County, Florida was suspended for encouraging her students to express their feelings about the events through their artwork. School officials later say that the suspension had more to do with Bowes demonstrating to students how a hijacker could take over a plane using a knife-like object after students inquired.

Sources - "Boca Art Teacher Suspended Over Pupils' Sketches of Terror" - South Florida Sun-Sentinel - 9/19/01, "Suspended Teacher Demonstrated Hijacker's Possible Tactics" - Palm Beach Post - 9/21/01

On 9/18/01, the Daily Californian, a student-run campus newspaper at UC Berkeley, ran an editorial cartoon by syndicated cartoonist Darrin Bell. The cartoon featured two Muslim Arabs in the hand of a demon and surrounded by flames discussing their having made it to paradise. After the cartoon appeared in the paper, student protestors declared a sit-in at the Daily Californian offices and presented the paper with a list of demands including a printed apology. When the paper refused to meet the protestors's demands the student senate drafted a bill to raise the rent of the paper and subject all staffers to mandatory sensitivity training.

Sources - "University of Censorship's Fall Semester" - San Francisco Chronicle - 10/11/01

In October 2001, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a bill, by a 200-1 vote, that would mandate that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem during each school day unless the school had written permission from a parent exempting their child.

Source - "Bill Would Compel Pledge or Anthem in Pa. Schools" - Philadelphia Inquirer/AP - 10/17/01

A substitute teacher with the Pittsburgh Public Schools is suspended on 9/20/01 for writing "Osama bin Laden did us a favor. He vulcanized us, awakened us and strengthened our resolve" in the margins of a newspaper that he later threw away. The teacher later had a chance to explain that he wrote the lines after hearing them on a newscast and was using them for a book he's writing about making the best of horrible situations. After further investigation, the teacher was reinstated.

Sources - "Sub Teacher Fired Over bin Laden Note" - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 9/21/01, "Substitute Teacher Gets His Job Back Pronto After Suspension for bin Laden Writing" - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 9/22/01

In September 2001, A fifth-grade student from Jefferson County, Missouri (near St. Louis) was suspended for three days for drawing a picture of the World Trade Center on fire and taping it to his study cubicle. When asked why he drew it, the student allegedly did not answer but grinned. A spokesperson for the school district said that the student was suspended for the grinning and not the drawing itself.

Source - "School Suspends Buy Who Drew Picture of Attack, Then Grinned While Showing It" - St. Louis Post Dispatch - 10/4/01

In October 2001, A high school student from Fairview Park, Ohio was suspended for 10 days for displaying posters on his locker. The posters featured an eagle with a tear drop and several had bombers drawn on them with messages such as "May God have mercy, because we will not." School officials suspended the student, Aaron Pettit, because they viewed the posters as threats against Arab-American students. Pettit sued the school in federal court and was reinstated.

Source - "Fairview Student Was Disciplined for Hanging Patriotic Posters" - 10/10/01 - Cleveland Plain Dealer

In Topeka, Kansas, McCarter Elementary School officials implemented a policy whereby students were forbidden to wear traditional Halloween costumes to school and, instead, will only be allowed to wear costumes with patriotic themes.

Source - "School Nixes Traditional Costumes" - 10/24/01 - Topeka Capital-Journal

School officials at Newton North High School in Massachusetts came under fire from some parents for allowing Boston University professor and author Howard Zinn to speak to students in mid-November 2001 in the school's auditorium. During his speech, Zinn criticized the U.S. war against Afghanistan and U.S. foreign policy.

Source - "High School Speech by Peace Prof Raises Ire" - 11/20/01 - Boston Herald

School officials in Bexley, Ohio were criticized after having a Muslim speaker associated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations address students at a high school assembly in November 2001.

Source - "School Board Backs Muslim Speaker" - 12/18/01

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WORKPLACE
Jonnie Hargis, an employee at the Young Research Library at UCLA, received an e-mail from co-worker Michelle Torre that was sent to other employees at the library. The e-mail contains "America: The Good Neighbor," a speech written by Canadian Gordon Sinclair in the early 1970's. Hargis responded to the e-mail by calling into question U.S. support of policies by Israel against Palestinians. Hargis was subsequently suspended without pay for 5 days for violating a policy that forbids sending unsolicited e-mails containing political, religious or patriotic messages to library department lists. That policy was created the same day that Hargis was suspended and Torre received no disciplinary action. Hargis' union has since filed a grievance with the University

Source - "YRL Employee Punished for Political Mass E-Mail" - (UCLA) Daily Bruin - 10/4/01

In September 2001, the library staff at Florida Gulf Coast University were told to not wear their "I'm Proud to be an American Stickers" because they might offend foreign students at the school.

Source - "College's Librarians Barred From Wearing American Pride Stickers" - www.freedomforum.org - 9/19/01

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MISCELLANEOUS
In October 2001, a 22-year-old man was kicked off of two different flights, on the same day, by United Airlines at Philadelphia International Airport because airport security thought he might be a safety risk. The controversy began when the man, Neil Godfrey, had his luggage randomly searched and it was discovered that he had a copy of Hayduke Lives! a novel about a radical environmentalist who destroys property. The book's front cover features an illustration of a hand holding dynamite. After being questioned several times by a variety of airport security, law enforcement officials and even a National Guardsman, Godfrey was denied the opportunity to board his flight.

After returning home and contacting an United Airlines official, Godfrey was told he would be able to travel on a later flight. For the second flight, he chose a Harry Potter book. Upon returning to the airport, Godfrey's luggage was again searched, he was again questioned by airport security, law enforcement and a National Guardsman, his book again examined, and he was patted down. Ultimately, Godfrey was also denied the opportunity to fly on the second flight.

Source - "Novel Security Measures" - Philadelphia City Paper - October 18-25, 2001

When President Bush visited Sacramento, California, approximately 30 anti-war protesters attempted to move into a space where others were standing to view the president's motorcade they were prevented from doing so by Sacramento police. A Secret Service spokesman blamed the action on "miscommunication" between the Secret Service and the local police.

Source - "High-Profile Sacramento Visitor Puts Free Speech to the Test" - Sacramento Bee - November 4, 2001

Yahoo and other online message boards have been removing postings related to the events of September 11th that they deem offensive. Included among the messages that were removed are postings linking users to websites that advocate a holy war against the Western world and messages from users that say the U.S. deserved the attacks. Arab-American advocates are also alleging that these same companies ignore postings that are anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

Source - "Online Companies Draw Fire for Removing 'Offensive' Postings" - Newsbytes/Washington Post - November 19, 2001

--- another text ---

I found this web page while I was surfing around, thought it might be of interest to some people...
Since 2001-9-11, US citizens have been asking ``Why do they hate us so much?'' For most Americans, this is a rhetorical question. They don't really want to know why. They just want to voice their belief that they are the best country in the world and they have never done anything wrong. On the contrary, so they say they believe, they have been the most genereous and helpful country in the world. Unfortunately, the facts are the opposite. What the USA is good at is media manipulation. Their propaganda techniques would have made Goebbels faint with delight.

This web page is for those US citizens who want a few starting clues as to why so many people hate the USA. If you don't want to know, just click the ``back'' button.

Having good advertising/propaganda technique is not in itself a bad thing, but it does mean that Americans can't see the world clearly from within their own environment. The USA is in many ways an excellent country. The problem is just that this is so often at cost to the rest of the world, both in wealth and lives. State-of-the-art media manipulation ensures that most US citizens don't know what is being done in their name.

Starting on 2001-12-21, I'll start writing out the reasons why most people in the world hate the USA. (I wrote down 42 reasons in the first 2 hours of writing.) These reasons will not be in order of strength of hate. Please ignore the order. I'm just using a numbering so that I can count the reasons easily.

About 3000 innocent civilians were killed on 2001-9-11. This is a tiny token compared the suffering inflicted on the world by the USA every day. (Perhaps I should also mention that the murder rate in the USA is about 80 per million per annum, which is about 20,000 per annum for the whole country. So the deaths on 2001-9-11 were less than a typical 2 months of murders in the USA. The murder rate in Australia is only about 20 per million per annum because we have strict gun control laws.)

The United States sees all world issues with one eye closed. US citizens see only what is good about themselves and their client states and what is bad in others. But they should open the other eye too - and see the evil in themselves and the good in others.

In the USA, it is said that ``the terrorists hate the democracy and freedom of the USA and the West''. This is complete garbage. Anyone with more than 5 neurons working in their brain knows that this is garbage. People worldwide admire the good things of the USA and hate the bad things. Americans must do some homework and find out what crimes, barbarism and atrocities are committed in their name.

The USA has built up a deep reservoir of hate against it. The reservoir of hate has become much deeper since 2001-9-11. Sometimes the dam wall breaks a little. But if the USA does not open its eyes soon, the dam wall will burst wide open and unleash the entire reservoir. Suicide hijackings are just the first unavoidable sign of the anti-USA hate for US citizens. More signs are sure to emerge as time goes by.

The mass murder of over 1 million innocent Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam war as an act of mass state terrorism. The USA should have been forced to pay hundreds of billions of dollars of reparations for these war crimes. But instead, the USA imposed horrendous trade sanctions on Vietnam which led to mass starvation for many years. At the same time, the USA forced the Vietnamese to put a humiliating amount of effort into finding decades-old corpses of American war criminals. Tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian Vietnamese died without their bodies being recovered. But US citizens are capable of feeling no sympathy for any people other than their own.

The removal of the freely elected democratic government of Chile by the CIA, including the bombing of the presidential palace (on another September 11), followed by the murder of thousands of innocent civilians.

Decades of embargo of the popular government of Cuba, while the USA gives most favoured nation status to China, which is one of the most undemocratic governments in the world.

For a few decades now, the USA has been cooperating with China in the international ostracism of Taiwan. Although Taiwan is a democratic country and China is a totalitarian dictatorship, the USA takes the side of China. This is because the USA wants access to China's markets for its big capitalists. This shows that the USA is against democracy. The USA actually prefers to have totalitarian dictatorships as allies, as has been shown for many decades around the world. The USA is not pro-democracy. The USA is just pro-big-capitalist. How can anyone believe that the USA prefers democracy when they see them isolate Taiwan so as to be friendly towards China.

After the second world war, the USA forced the United Kingdom to empty its vaults of gold to give to the USA. As a result, the British had punishing rationing and serious poverty for many years after 1945. There had been an agreement between Churchill and the USA that the ``lend-lease'' scheme for ships and supplies for the UK was a way of getting the USA to participate in the war although most of the population of the USA were essentially pro-German. The USA entered the 2nd world war when it was in their interests to do so. And after the war, they went back on their deal to convert lend-lease to a gift, because they wanted to force the UK to dismantle its empire. This is still deeply resented by older people in the UK. The British Empire was dismantled, many dozens of countries fell into utter chaos, and the USA became the dominant country in the world.
The USA continues to protect, encourage and finance Israel in its crimes against humanity in Palestine, most of which they illegally occupy. The USA blocks every humane gesture by the United Nations. The USA encourages and financially supports the slaughter of thousands of innocent people in the Palestine every year by the Israelis seeking Lebensraum. The occupied West Bank of Jordan resembles the Warsaw Ghetto of world war II. But what was evil for the German Nazis to do is encouraged every day by the USA.

Enforcement of completely inappropriate and humiliating conditions on Thailand through the IMF, which is controlled by the USA. In the ``Asian crisis'' of about 1997, the currency of Thailand collapsed, due to the sudden withdrawal of huge amounts of capital, mostly by the USA. As a result, there was massive unemployment, thousands of people committed suicide, and the misery continues to this day. The IMF forced Thailand to carry out even more inappropriate measures after the crisis, whereas Malaysia refused the IMF commands. Malaysia's economy improved quickly but Thailand's did not. The economies of Vietnam and China hardly noticed the ``Asian meltdown'', because they did not follow the IMF commands.

The USA backed Pol Pot with arms, training, finance and full diplomatic support for over a decade. This was one of the worst regimes in history, which killed over 1/3 of the population of the country. But the USA supported Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge as they continued to commit atrocities and destroy the country of Cambodia with land mines. The rise of Pol Pot started when the USA was illegally bombing huge areas of Cambodia, intentionally killing vast numbers of innocent civilians. The USA has neve apologized for these crimes.
The USA colonized and annexed Hawaii. The USA should decolonise this independent nation.

The USA funds a terrorist training school called the "School of the Americas".
The USA gave huge amounts of funding to terrorists in Nicaragua who killed hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans in the 1980s with guns and mines on farmland. Many hundreds of innocent civilians lost their legs too or were maimed in other ways. When there was finally an election along US-approved lines, the USA said the vote was not fair and would not be recognized - until it emerged that their side won, and then they immediately announced that the election was completely fair.

The USA illegally mined Managua harbour. When the USA was taken to the international court for this and the USA lost the case, the USA immediately withdrew its recognition of the court, even though it had agreed by treaty to give at least 6 months notice of withdrawal of recognition. The USA clearly believes that only other countries need to abide by international agreements. The USA is exempt from all international law.

The USA is generally hated for its citizens' Disneyland attitude to tourism. When US citizens travel abroad, they mostly think that everything is a kind of theme park for them to photograph and poke fun at and desecrate. US citizens talk loudly and coarsely when overseas. They abuse and insult the women. They think that their money gives them the right to do anything they want. The US ignorance of foreign cultures and languages is legendary. Americans get irate when people of other countries can' speak fluent English.
US citizens have absolutely no comprehension of how much other countries suffer. A typical attitude is shown by some US women who see news stories of third world countries where people are starving and say things like: ``Ooh, I'd die for that slim figure.''
US citizens have a general attitude that they are rich because they are superior. This is totally explicitly stated, especially on ceremonial occasions. The reason the USA is rich is for many reasons, including very successful exploitation of other countries, the fact that they came into world wars I and II very late when other countries were exhausted, the geographical isolation of the USA, the fertile land which they took from the indigenous people (whom they largely exterminated), and their homogeneous language and culture.

Throughout the 1990s, the USA has been imposing "globalisation" on the whole world. This is a propaganda term which means americanisation of culture, economics and politics. All countries are forced to cut bak on all public services and social welfare as the US has done, and every country must accept anything that the US wants to export, no matter how much this harms the economies of non-US countries. This often means that even valid health objections are rejected by the USA. When other countries succeed in exporting to the USA, e.g. farm goods at 1/3 the cost of production, the USA puts on heavy tariffs and gives substantial support to US farmers. Current estimates are that 50% of US farm income comes from the government. The USA does not permit any other country to do this. When other countries object, the USA wrangles in courts for years until so much damage is done that the issue is no longer relevant. The so-called "globalisation" ideology is making poor countries poorer and the USA richer.
The USA stole vast areas of land from the Spanish empire to create California, Texas etc.

The USA approved the Suharto government's killing of about 500,000 Chinese Indonesians who were suspected of being communist sympathisers.

The US government gave the go-ahead to the Indonesian government to invade East Timor in 1975. This resulted in the several hundred thousand deaths of innocent civilians, with US approval.

Invasion of Haiti.

Invasion of Panama to get just one guy, Noriega, who happened to be a CIA employee who was conducting most of the cocaine trade from South America into the USA.
Invasion of Grenada.

Unsuccessful invasion of Cuba. Large numbers of people pointlessly killed for ideological reasons, with no apology.

In many countries, especially in Asia, the USA has forced governments to accept imports of US tobacco as a condition of normalising trade. And in some countries, the USA insisted that since they had to catch up for lost sales of cigarettes in the past, they should be allowed to conduct big advertising campaigns. They insisted on this despite the fact that many of these countries had already banned cigarette advertising for health reasons. Therefore the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Asians is due to these disgusting "fair trade" conditions by the USA.

Support of muslim fanatics in Afghanistan to kill Russians and other Soviet citizens. The Russian presence improved the quality and equality of life in Afghanistan. As a result of US actions in Afghanistan, huge numbers of Russian conscripts were killed, the country's political system collapsed, and the political vacuum was filled by US client groups who violated human rights on a vast scale with US support, knowledge and acquiescence.

Support for Iraq against Iran in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, despite the very well-known fact that Iraq attacked Iran pre-emptively without warning from the air in the expectation of destroying all of Iran's planes on the ground and occupying all of Iran. The Iraqis killed as many as 1 million Iranians. The Iraqis used chemical and biological weapons with US knowledge and acquiescence because of the US desire to punish Iran. The USA never forgives a country which has beaten or humiliated the USA. In punishment for the Iranians locking up 50 US citizens for 1 year, the USA caused the death of millions of Iranians. The USA still has punishing sanctions against Iran for no good reason.

The USA is currently (late 2001) preventing Europe from starting its own GPS system. They say it is against US interests. Indeed it is. If the US goes to war with any country, it can use "Selective Availability" to remove GPS capability from any region of the earth - but the USA military ahve the decryption codes to use the GPS even if it is rendered completely useless to other nations. This makes it more difficult for non-US countries to aim cruise missiles, but it also cripples air travel and sea travel within the region. This power over the whole world is awesome, and the US cannot be trusted with this power. And now they are trying to stop Europe from taking away the US monopoly. The USA is always against any other country having any sort of monopoly, but fiercely defends its own monopolies.

The USA requires other countries to permit US companies to bid for defence contracts, and they are believed to use echelon intercepts to find out the bids of their opposition. But foreign countries are not allowed to bid on US contracts mostly, because the US only trusts US citizens to work on US defence projects.

When other countries have slight irregularities in voting procedures, the USA takes this as a pretext to impose heavy trade sanctions. But often these irregularities are caused mostly by ignorance or misunderstandings. But in the 2000 election in the USA, thousands of African Americans were turned back from the polls in Florida because the officials knew that they would vote for the Democrats. As a result the candidate with the second-most votes was selected to be president. This kind of outright racism and election fixing would be regarded as unacceptable in third world countries. A new election wouold be required, but in the USA, the ``national interest'' required that the irregularities be ignored.

Whenever an international standard develops for anything, the USA insists on trying to undermine it. Just one example is the adoption of GSM, which was invented in Europe. The US ideology demanded that there should be multiple competing digital mobile phone technologies because pointless competition is part of the USA's culture. As a result, the USA ended up with an appalling mess with mobile telephony, whereas the rest of the world got the very successful GSM.

Along a similar line, the US insists on keeping medieval Roman measuring units, also called British Imperial units (acres, inches, feet, yards, furlongs, miles, pounds, ounces, hundredweights, imperial tons, gallons, fluid ounces etc.), because it is in the short-term interests of the US to do so. Consequently, every other country has to produce everything in dual units for the USA. The USA claims to be very modern, but is in actual fact the most backward bountry in the world in measuring units. Everybody else in the world can cope with metric units. So why can't the USA cope?

The USA has a world-wide spying system called "echelon", operated in conjunction with the English-speaking AUSCANNZUKUS alliance. This is used to give the US economic supremacy and political advantage by listening in to all phone calls in the world. The USA has recently passed laws to give it authority over all computer traffic (Internet) which passes through US territory. They have given themselves extra-territorial jurisdiction over supposed computer crimes committed with no connection at all with the USA. Extra-territorial jurisdiction is very much hated by other countries. The USA never accepts extra-territorial jurisdiction by other countries, as shown by the case where France required Yahoo to not sell Nazi memorabilia to French citizens. A US court overturned this.

For many decades, the US has operated an international cartel of capitalist countries to deny strong encryption and powerful computers to any country which the US has any sort of disagreement with. This has helped to impoverish many other countries.

When the USA organised an international boycott of selling wheat to the USSR in 1980, the USA secretly agreed with the boycotted countries that the USA would get all of their contracts after the boycott was lifted. Thus countries like Australia which went along with the boycott lost all their markets to the USA after the boycott was lifted. This was very much hated in Australia.

The USA tries to export its gun culture/obsession to other countries. US lobby groups send missionaries to other countries, such as Australia, to strengthen opposition to gun laws. Since the USA has about 4 times the per capita murder rate of Australia, this is not a very good idea for Australia. But the USA thinks that their constitution is the best in the world, and anyone who is different must be stupid. They also like to sell more guns. So they interfere with the sovereignty of other nations by stirring up and supporting anti-gun-law lobbyists in other countries.

The US imposes its laws against music and video copying throughout the world, excerising extra-territorial `jurisdiction'. Because of the use by pathetically weak encryption by the US music and film industry, the USA has a law called the DMCA, which forbids decryption of music and videos. But people in Europe and Russia have decrypted these formats. Therefore these people are prosecuted in the USA for acts which are legal in other countries. One prominent example is the CSS encryption, which enables US companies to charge more in Europe than in the USA, Asia or Europe, for instance. It also prevents linux users from playing video disks.

This kind of market distortion is the opposite to globalisation and is anti-competitive. This shows that the USA lies when they say they are in favour of globalisation and free competition. They are only in favour of globalisation and free competition in market sectors where the USA is strong. In the markets where the USA is weak, they enforce anti-competitive and anti-trade protectionist measures, and laws to distort markets in their favour.

The USA unilaterally withdrew from the climate treaty, because it was not in the US short-term interest to cooperate with other countries. This is despite the fact that the USA has about the same standard of living as western Europe with about twice the per capita energy consumption. The USA is just an extremely inefficient consumer of fuel, which forces to the rest of the world to use less. The USA wants other countries to make economic sacrifices to help the USA, but not vice versa.

The USA is unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty out of perceived self-interest. I think that the Russians have not objected to this because they know that the USA is just wasting its money. But the USA wants to have complete impunity to bomb any country in the world back into the stone age, like Afghanistan, without any risk at all of retaliation.

The USA insists that patent law should be sacred world-wide when the USA wants to maximize its profits from AIDS treatment drugs. As a result, millions of people are dying needlessly world-wide in poor countries. But when the USA wanted to get some cheap anti-anthrax drugs because about 3 people in the USA had died, then on the grounds of national emergency, the USA said that they should be able to override the patents just to get a price reduction for a drug which they could well afford. This has outraged people worldwide who see that the value of a USA citizen is a million times greater than that of citizens of other countries, in the USA's view.
Participation in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians in terrorist attacks on Germany in the Second World War.

Use of nuclear weapons against hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Japan in the second world war. This was not how the war ended actually. The Japanese had been trying very hard to surrender, but the US refused to accept their surrender because they wanted to try out the nuclear weapons which were ready too late for the European theatre for which they were intended. Thus the USA prolonged the war with Japan so as to be able to test the effects of nuclear weapons on hundreds of thousands of civilians. This is definitely a war crime.
The USA fire-bombed Tokyo, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, simply with the intention of terrorising the population. This is a serious war crime.

President Clinton ordered the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceuticals factory, thinking erroneously that it was for producing some sort of armaments. Several hundred people were killed in this. Then the USA put trade restrictions on Sudan so that pharmaceuticals could not be imported. As a result, since that time many tens of thousands of additional people have died of malaria because that factory was producing anti-malaria drugs. This crime in itself was much more serious than the 2001-9-11 suicide hijacking.

While siding with Iraq against Iran, the US shot down an Iranian passenger plane, killing hundreds of people, even though it was clear from all sources of information that it was a civilian plane. Some trigger-happy naval officer shot it down before thinking. This is the problem with giving the muscles of a giant to someone with the mind of a child. The USA just so easily wipes out hundreds, thousands or millions of lives without consequences to itself.

In terms of energy efficiency, the USA has about the same standard of living as Western Europe but with twice the consumption of energy. As a result, the USA has to control world oil prices so as to maintain its standard of living. On top of this, they refuse to restrict their pollution of the atmosphere.
For the last 30 years, the USA has been the principle funder of the Irish terrorists who have been killing both civilians and soldiers trying to keep the peace in Northern Ireland. This shows that the USA only objects to terorists who are muslim and anti-USA. The anti-british northern Irish terrorists are pro-USA. So the USA sends them lots of money and political support to kill the English in Britain and the protestants in northern Ireland. This shows that the USA very definitely will not declare a war on all terrorists.

During the Second World War, the USA was originally planning to send about 215 army divisions to Europe in 1943 to remove the Nazis. But they worked out that this would affect their economy. So they changed their plans and sent only 90 divisions in 1944. As a result, the US economy improved during the World War II, while the economy of Europe contracted by about 25%. during the extra year, several million more people died, including a few million people in concentration camps such as the European Jews. This proves that the USA values its own economy much more than the lives of millions of innocent people in other countries. The US entry into WW2 was in the US interests, not an altruistic act.

When the Jewish terrorists killed British and Palestinian people in 1945-1948, the USA gave full support to the terrorists to create a state out of the land of the Palestinians. The USA supported, financed and harboured these terrorists. Clearly the USA is pro-terrorist. Menachim Begin was one of the terrorists who bombed the King David Hotel in Palestine, and yet the USA gave him full support. In the same way, the USA fully supports the war criminal Ariel Sharon now.

Any one or two of these reasons would be adequate to explain why the world hates the USA. But taken together, it is amazing that the USA has not been attacked before by "terrorists". I personally expect that some time in the next 3-5 years, a "terrorist" will sail into a US harbour and explode a nuclear weapon on board a ship. But even this would not be greater than the crimes committed by the USA against other countries. The "terrorists" will have been emboldened by the 2001-9-11 attack, and they will now be preparing something even bigger to upstage that.
The USA is responsible for millions of deaths every decade world-wide. This has been done without any fear of attack on US territory. Now for the first time, the USA gets an attack, and it goes on a rampage killing thousands of innocent people while trying to track down and kill a handful of "masterminds".

Anyone in the USA who really, really wants to understand why so many people hate the USA should read the above notes and do further research of their own to learn of the huge scale of murder and horrendous exploitation of other countries by the USA. But it is not in the ``interests'' of US citizens to learn about the harm they are doing every day to the rest of the world. Like the Roman Empire before them, the USA will only realise what it has done wrong when the ``barbarians'' are at the gates and their empire crumbles. On 2001-9-11, just a few barbarians got in through the gates. There will certainly be more. And that's why I'm not really keen on the idea of working in the USA right now. (It's very easy indeed to imagine how a suitcase nuke can be brought into NY harbour on a ship and detonated.) If I were a US resident wishing to avoid future destruction, I would be urging my government to stop funding and collaborating in the destruction of the Palestinian people and colonisation of their territory.

Personally, I don't hate the USA. But I am dismayed by the horrors inflicted on the poor countries of the world by the Emporer of the USA. No country can afford to make enemies of the majority of countries in the world. The excessive use of the ``big stick'' to solve all international problems has resulted in a very resentful world. Like a lion-tamer who whacks the lions too often, the USA needs to be careful now. Even elephants sometimes kill their trainer when they have been beaten once too often.

The actions by the USA in the last 3 months of 2001 may be described as ``fighting barbarism with barbarism''. Many people in the world hoped on 2001-9-11 that US citizens would stop and think about what they are doing which attracts so much hate. But the US government told them not to think about the USA's evil-doing. People in the USA who have thought about the causes of 2001-9-11 have been harrrassed and threatened. Therefore there will be no hope of the USA changing its ways. The USA will live by the big stick and die by the big stick. There are many good, thinking US citizens. But they are powerless.

[This message has been edited by hex (edited January 28, 2002).]

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