Review: A People’s History of the United States

Howard Zinn, in his book “A People’s History of the United States” reflects on US foreign policy during the Clinton presidency:

The U.S. government did not seem to recognize that its punitive foreign policies, its military installations in countries all over the glove, might arouse anger in foreign countries, and that anger might turn to violence.  When it did, the only response that the United States could think of was to react with more violence.

And so they did engage in more violence and over nine years later, are still doing so.  But one women, Amber Amundson, who lost her husband, an army pilot, in the attack on 9/11 on the Pentagon, said this:

I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our nation’s leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment.  To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take no comfort in your words of rage.  If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband.

Unfortunately, they did not listen.  The violence against innocent human beings, mainly children, continues to spread around the globe, with no end in sight.

Here is what Robert Bowman, retired US Air Force and retired Catholic Bishop, wrote about the terrorist bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, back in 1998 in the National Catholic Reporter:

We are not hated because we practice democracy, value freedom, or uphold human rights.  We are hated because our government denies these things to people in Third World countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational corporations.  That hatred we have sown has come back to hunt us in the form of terrorism….. Instead of sending our sons and daughters around the world to kill Arabs so we can have the oil under their sand, we should send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and feed starving children…. In short, we should do good instead of evil.  Who would try to stop us?  Who would hate us?  Who would want to bomb us?  That is the truth the American people need to hear.

But the American people are not listening.  They did not listen then, and they are not listening today.  I wonder if they will ever wake up and listen to the truth.  I wonder if they will ever hear the screams of the little children as they die from US bombs and US bullets in their own homes.